#NCSEN: PPP poll shows we’re headed for a GOP runoff.
Public Policy Polling has released its latest numbers on the 2014 US Senate race. The Democrat pollster is finding what a lot of us have known. This thing — at least on the GOP side — is WIDE OPEN.
The latest survey shows state House speaker Thom Tillis leading the GOP primary field with 20 percent, followed by Greg Brannon and Heather Grant at 13 percent each. (One month ago, in this same poll, Tillis had 19 percent, followed by 11 percent each for Brannon and Grant.)
Ted Alexander pulls 10 percent, Mark Harris is at 8 percent, and Edward Kryn is at 2 percent. (If my math is right, that ads up to a 34 percent showing for UNDECIDED. Yessirrree. WIDE OPEN.)
In head-to-head matchup tests for the November general vote, Hagan is tied with Kryn but trails all other candidates. Alexander (45-38) and Brannon (43-40) poll the best against Hagan. Tillis and Harris poll at 42-40 against Hagan.
Both Alexander and Grant have little to no money, campaign structure, or name ID. How are they polling so competitively? Campaign observers tell me that both are performing very impressively in candidate forums. THAT may be making a difference in generating buzz that pays off in the form of poll results like this. Does it necessarily mean that — if either of them manages to escape the primary — they can be competitive for the November race? Time will tell.
Most of the GOP field — according to the PPP poll — has name ID ranging from 25 to 28 percent. Tillis is the best known, at 44 percent.
We concur with PPP on what appear to be the biggest news in the poll. Mark Harris has been portrayed in the media as the conservative alternative to Thom Tillis — yet he has been consistently polling at the rear of the pack.
Thom Tillis has spent $300,000 on TV advertising, and holds a senior position in the General Assembly that allows him to obtain press coverage basically whenever he wants it. Yet, he still has only 44 percent name ID and his lead over the primary field has shrunk by ONE point in the last month. Mr. Inevitability is not even showing the best head-to-head numbers against Hagan.
Tillis is also polling well below the 40 percent mark needed to win the primary outright and avoid a runoff.
Candidate filing ends at the end of this month. The primary election happens the first week of May.
Look for Rove to put on a major push prior to the May vote.If Rove thinks that will not put Tillis over the 40% mark then he will wait for the runoff and slam the opponents with a tsunami of negative ads.
Freedom Works getting involved for Brannon cancels out what Rove does for Tillis.
Hmmm, interesting numbers. I do wonder about the: “Mark Harris has been portrayed in the media as the conservative alternative to Thom Tillis”
Who is doing that? I havent seen it. The only reference I’ve seen to that effect is the one manufactured by Rove’s PAC polling put out last week or so.
Also interesting to me was that it seems 73% of the people polled had no idea who any of the GOP candidates were, and Tillis was just a bit better in that category.
So all those Hagan match-up questions seem really to amount to “Hagan vs generic Republican candidate”, and in that light Tillis, who more people know about and who has spent more money than the others, still polls slightly less or just even with that generic candidate.
For someone that not that many people know about, his unfavorable rating spread is pretty up there – if you “do” know him, good chance you dont like him.
Wonder how that will shake out if/when people start paying more attention, the Dems start blasting ads and “Tillis v Hagan” becomes the actual, official match-up. I think that might be Hagan’s best-case scenario at this point.
My friends in Raleigh tell that Ted Cruz is coming to NC campaigning for Brannon. This could definitely be a game changer.
Yes. That definitely would!
This is all very interesting but I sure wouldn’t assume that we’re seeing the true lay of the land based on a PPP “poll”.
I think the runoff will happen.
The Tea Party has enough strength to deny Tillis a clear primary win. Then the runoff should be contentious enough to guarantee Hagan a return to the senate.
We many not be able to elect a Republican but at least we can guarantee that the Republican we do not like will not get elected. I think this is called circular logic. Or maybe it is called stupidity.
Nobody has ever accused us NC Republicans of being real bright.
A phony who strongly pushed state Obamacare exchanges in the legislature and supports a ”pathway to citizenship” for illegal aliens like Tilli$ deserves a clear primary defeat, not any type of primary win. He is also a Richard Morgan disciple.
To be bright, Republicans need to nominate someone who supports our principles, and that is NOT Thom Tilli$.
The Demonrats defeat us many times because they get behind one candidate, where the Republicans have many battle it out in the primary with some refusing to support the winner that runs in November. Hagan, the socialist, wins by a few points in Nov. I would like to see the formation of a strong conservative third party.
Unless you have election laws like New York that allow cross endorsement, where more than one party can run the same candidate, a conservative party would split the vote in a way that would let Democrats win most of the time. It would therefore be counterproductive under our current election laws. In New York, an active Conservative Party flourishes because the votes for a candidate under all party labels are aggregated in counting the votes.
The Conservative Party can force the GOP to the right, because they can nominate the conservative who is running in the GOP primary, and say ”OK GOP if you nominate a different person, then you split the vote.” In some circumstances they can win three way races. For example, in 1970 ultra liberal GOP incumbent Senator Charles Goodell was seeking reelection, and the Democrats were also putting up an ultra-liberal. The Conservative Party nominated Jim Buckley, brother of conservative writer and commentator Bill Buckley, and elected Buckley to the US Senate in a three way race.
I would strongly favor setting up a North Carolina Conservative Party if we had election laws like New York, but I would oppose it under the current North Carolina election laws. For example, with New York laws, we could tell the GOP establishment this year that Greg Brannon will be running in November on the Conservative Party line so their best bet is to make sure he is also on the Republican line.
Heard Greg Brannon Sat Nite @ an oath Keepers meeting in Salisbury. He is as pure a CONSTITUTIONALIST as it gets. Knows its history..knows Nc’s history and knows OBAMACARE inside & out by being a MD. Everyone please listen to this man. A true conservative and knows how to fix it all inspite of a democrat judge trying to torpedo him in a farce fraud trial.