Q-poll: Burr UP; McCrory, Trump DOWN
Quinnipiac University is the latest to throw its two cents into this year’s elections. Their poll of 751 likely voters (MOE +-3.6%) was taken from August 31 to Se
ptember 7.
PRESIDENT. The QU survey has Hillary Clinton leading Donald Trump 47% to 43% in North Carolina. Trump gets 91% of Republicans and 44% of Independents. Clinton gets 90% of Democrats and 41% of Independents. Men are splitting 46% to 44% in favor of Trump, while women split 49% to 42% in favor of Clinton. Republicans gets 60% of the white vote, while Democrats get 81% of the non-white vote.
SENATE. The QU survey as incumbent Richard Burr over challenger Deborah Ross by 49% to 43%. Burr leads 49%-43% over Ross with men AND 48%-43% over Ross with women. Burr gets 60% of the white vote, while Ross gets 69% of the nonwhite vote. Burr gets 94% of Republicans, while Ross gets 82% of Democrats.
GOVERNOR. The QU survey has Roy Cooper over Pat McCrory 51% to 44%. Cooper gets 83% of Democrats and 52% of Independents. McCrory gets 88% of Republicans and 43% of Independents. This is becoming part of a worrisome trend for the Republican incumbent. The RealClearPolitics (RCP) average of polls on this contest gives Cooper a 6% lead. According to RCP, Cooper has maintained leads of 4%-9% over McCrory since May. The only exceptions? Polls in May and June from Civitas that gave McCrory leads of 7% and 5% respectively over Cooper AND two polls from Public Policy Polling (PPP) from May and June that found the race to be a TIE.
I am really surprised that Ol’ Roy is that far ahead. Yes, I know that Pat is not all that great but Roy has been such a poor AG that he really has no positive points other than having a D beside his name. I guess this can be chalked up to the low information crowd. Pat really needs to come out with some guns blazing, it was good to see he is running on HB2 but the ads are still not attacking Roy enough. if he loses then Pat’s campaign manger needs to never have a job like that again just for the fact that he is not picking any of the low hanging fruit that the Coop has provided.
After McCrory’s 2008 campaign bombed, I talked to Jack Hawke, who I knew through the NCGOP, about my concerns about giving money in 2012 because McCrory had not used lines of attack that were clearly open in 2008 or even responded to Dumplin’s attacks. Jack told me that the 2008 election was lost due to a negative attack Dumplin’ had used which was factually incorrect on importing garbage to eastern NC. The polls showed they lost enough points there and never made them back up that it cost them the election statewide. Jack had prepared a response but McCrory refused to let him run it because McCrory thought it was negative and he did not want to run a negative campaign. That cost him the 2008 election.
McCrory should have learned from that. There is a term in politics for someone who insists on always running a positive campaign and that term is ”loser”.
Jack assured me that McCrory had learned the lesson, and in 2012 would permit comparison campaign ads that would contrast McCrory and Purdue on issues.
McCrory seems to be sliding back into the 2008 mode, and that could very easily cost the GOP the governorship.
One only hopes the RGA has enough resources to expose Cooper’s miserable record in their ads if McCrory won’t do it in his own campaign. Cooper would be the governor from hell.
I have multiple problems with the Quinnipiac poll release.
1. They are using ‘Likely Voters’, not ‘registered voters’.
2. They do not list how their sample is weighted; the breakout by party or race. I am sure if you email them for their methodology, these numbers would make this poll more interesting.
3. They’re basing their poll on turn out from 2012. Right now, the Democrats are very worried that minorities are not going to turn out like they did in the previous election.
4. +/- 3.6 margin of error isn’t the biggest I’ve seen but it’s definitely not small.
Likely voters is actually more reliable than registered voters. “Likely” means they are more likely to show up on election day. Many “registered” voters do not show up.
Hmph. McCrory pushed the “Connect NC” bond, and he may well end up watching Cooper preside over the ribbin cutting for the next 4 years. I do think I’ll vote for McCrory but it’s purely a lesser of evils choice for me.
McCrory is not good but Cooper is a much worse known Leftist enabler
Trump is not good but Hillary is a known liar and much worse Leftist enabler
Burr is a liberal republican in the senate but Ross will be a bigger much worse Leftist enabler
we have no good choices we only have much worse choices to avoid