Tuesday, July 15, 2008

NC Polls: Stability is the new story

During the primaries the story of the polling in North Carolina was its instability. One week in April PPP had Bev Perdue leading Richard Moore by eight, Survey USA showed the two tied, and a McClatchy poll showed Moore leading Perdue by six. Another week in March we had Kay Hagan leading Jim Neal by 11 points while they showed Neal leading Hagan by a point. As late as the last week before the primary Mason Dixon showed Fred Smith leading the GOP race for Governor while PPP and Survey USA each showed Pat McCrory with a lead in the mid single digits. It was hard to tell from the polls what the heck was going on, because they were all saying something different.

Not so for the general election. Survey USA came out with its newest round of polls today. In the Presidential race they show John McCain leading Barack Obama 50-45. Since the beginning of June five telephone polls have been released for North Carolina- two by us, and one each from SUSA, Rasmussen, and Civitas. Every single one of them has shown McCain leading by 2-5 points.

In the Gubernatorial race they have Bev Perdue up 47-46 on Pat McCrory. PPP, SUSA, and Rasmussen have all shown Perdue up by a single point in their latest polls. The last Civitas one showed her up two. Hard to be much more consistent than that.

Finally, they have Elizabeth Dole up 54-42 in the Senate race. The most recent PPP, SUSA, Rasmussen, and Civitas polls have all shown leads of 10-14 points for Dole over Hagan.

Sometimes the polls all show the same thing and they're all wrong (New Hampshire), but that's not the case too often. It's a good bet that Dole has a solid lead, McCain has a small lead, and the race for Governor is pretty much tied.

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