Campaign 2026 new polls: Davis up SEVEN, Cooper up SIX
We’re here in campaign crunch time. Voting is about to start. Pollsters tend to shift their strategies about this time. Many pollsters tend to shape their surveys to benefit whomever is paying the bill. As a result, early on in a campaign, you’ll get polling all over the place.
As the campaign starts to wind down and the voting gets started, pollsters tend to sharpen their pencils when conducting and producing their surveys. There is a friendly competition out there to see who can get the closest to the actual, final result. *Folks DO want to get hired for the next election cycle.*
In the 2024 Stein-Robinson matchup for governor, the Stein victory margin was 14.6 percent. East Carolina University (15%, 10/24-10/29), Marist (14%, 10/17-10/22) and something called Atlas Intel (15%, 10/24-10/29) proved to be the closest and most accurate in the end.
Of those three, only East Carolina has publicly polled in the 2026 Senate race. They showed, from 8/31-9/3, a 52-44 lead for Roy Cooper.
In late 2023, ECU had Robinson leading Stein by 4 percent. In late May 2024, ECU had Stein leading by one percent.
In 2026’s big statewide race, the Trafalgar Group has released a poll showing Roy Cooper leading Mike Whatley by SIX percent. Their survey has Cooper leading every age group. They have Cooper leading with women by nearly 20 percent. Whatley leads Cooper with men by 8.4 percent.
This is Trafalgar’s first public venture into 2026 North Carolina politics. They last polled the 2022 general election race between Ted Budd and Cherie Beasley. Trafalgar’s 2022 survey (11/4-11/6) had Budd beating Beasley by SIX percent. (He actually won by 3.2 percent.)
However, in June and September of 2022, Trafalgar released polls showing Budd with a THREE point lead.
The Democrat-aligned House Majority PAC has also released a poll on one of the most-watched House races in the state: NC-01, featuring incumbent Don Davis (D) and challenger Laurie Buckhout (R). THAT internal poll shows Davis with a 50-43 lead over Buckhout. Hitting the 50 percent mark this late in the game is typically a good sign for a campaign. But the district was redrawn to favor a Republican, and the DC GOPe still has plenty of money to spend.
About the same time, financial reports were showing each campaign neck-and-neck in the fundraising battle.
NC-01 is now R+6. Is NCGOPe taking note? Does NCGOPe care? Those of us that have attended GOP Conventions lately (state or local) are not surprised. It appears everyone else is catching on too.
There are many lessons to be learned here but no, they’re probably not paying attention because NCGOP and RNC leadership and their US House and Senate fund raising entity counterparts are all too damned stupid and arrogant to understand that CD1 is a failure at the grassroots level….because they never even take note of what is happening at that level. Bad district leadership resulting in a GOP civil war between the Buckhout/DC carpetbaggers and homegrown insurgents she’d faced not only in this year’s primary but more so in the 2024 primary. Out of state RNC types who can’t resist meddling in a primary. These same people not understanding or caring about what CD1 concerns and issues actually are and how they matter.
You’ve hit the nail square on the head.
The first district is such a mess. I’ll bet anyone Laurie loses. Terrible leadership.
You have to laugh at the defenders of Laurie and how poor they sound. And the new chair is so sad and so new, this is a seat we are going to lose.
Just imagine, Don Davis and coop in DC together. God-help NC and eastern NC.
THIS is where we are and what we have. And I suppose there won’t be many surprised faces (grassroots and conservatives primarily) once that lib, far left duo are sworn in.
We are just about to the point of no return of winning races in NC again.
We’ve LOST the gov mansion, lt gov, Sec of State, Atty General and Educ seat (did i miss any)??
What does that say about gop leadership in NC and our candidates??
We ain’t finding any jesse’s any time soon and if we did, the nc gop leadership wouldn’t support. Get used to losing.
At this rate, the First District doesn’t need a political consultant — it needs a therapist, a referee, and maybe an exorcist. ? We’re getting ready to lose another seat, and somehow everybody’s looking around wondering what happened. The Chair is crazy and Laurie is going to lose again.