Civitas Poll: Unaffiliateds go BIG for Hagan, slightly for NCGA Democrats
Roughly 27 percent of the electorate in North Carolina is not affilated with either of the three major parties. The Civitas Institute in Raleigh decided to take the political temperature of this group that could prove key in determining who represents The Tar Heel State in the US Senate over the next six years.
Civitas polled 400 registered unaffiliated voters from August 23-25. (Tillis and Hagan debated on television the evening of September 3.) The margin of error is +/- 4.9 percent. Here are some of the results that ought to have the NCGOP establishment sitting up and taking notice:
- Sixty-eight percent of respondents said things in North Carolina were headed down the wrong track
- Sixty-nine percent thought the country is on the wrong track
- Improving schools, teacher pay raises, and taxes topped the list of what respondents thought was going right in North Carolina
- On a generic ballot for NCGA, a Democrat outpaces a Republican by 33-28 with unaffiliated voters
- Thom Tillis has a favorable / unfavorable rating of 17-43 with unaffiliated voters (Hagan is at 43-43)
- Obama’s favorable /unfavorable with the UNA crowd is 48-47 (Pat McCrory is at 36-41)
- The US Senate race — among unaffiliated voters in the survey — stands like this: Hagan 39, Tillis 27, Haugh 8.
- 31 percent of pro-Hagan respondents said they are “definite” Hagan voters, while only 19 percent of pro-Tillis respondents said they are “definitely” Tillis voters.
- If you remove Haugh from the equation, Hagan leads Tillis 41-33. Thirty-four percent of pro-Hagan respondents said they were “definitely” with Hagan, while 25 percent of pro-Tillis respondents said they were “definitely” with Tillis.
- Sixty percent of all respondents said they were unaffiliated because of either (a) disliking both major parties, or (b) preferring issue positions over party labels.
- Fifty-two percent of respondents said they felt teacher unions were all about enriching themselves and pushing a personal agenda, and not so much about seeing the best outcome for the kids.
When we see that Obama has a positive approval rating with this group, even a small one, then one very serious question comes to mind – Why in the heck are we allowing them to vote in Republican primaries? Especially after the Mississippi dirty tricks.
Tillis has the Romney curse…NOT conservative ENOUGH…too much like Kay.
Interesting how they like the way the state is going on education and taxes; but in the wrong direction.
The web and TV ads I see only talk about Tillis cheering the 7% increase in teacher pay. Not a word about standing for the rule of law (because he won’t he will do as the Chamber of Commerce commands) not a word about repealing Obamacare, not a word about free market principles because he stands for public private partnerships and crony corporatism.
Rove and McCrory got they guy they wanted, why isn’t he up big in this state when POTUS is in so much trouble? Rockefeller Republicans will not get the job done.
We know, the GOP plays not to lose elections which is why they lose elections. Romney blew it because he is a moderate and played it safe. Tillis is taking the same approach, watch the moderates come to NC to campaign for him, good luck with that strategy.
Our country is in big trouble and at a time we need strong principled leaders, we get weakness. Primary voter turnout was pathetic across the country…many voters will not wake up until it is too late. Primaries matter…
As an UAV, I would question this poll. Where did Civitas get these 400, WAKE and Meck counties? INDEPENDENTS cannot be stereotyped but most are to the right of Tillis and would not choose Hagan or Tillis in an objectively worded poll. The opportunity to send a qualified candidate to the US Senate will have to wait until 2016″ There isn’t one on the 2014 ballot.
That comment about UAV’s being to the right of Tillis may have been true at one time, but it has been changed. Over the past few years, most of the new Unaffiliateds have come from people switching from Democrat, and that is not a conservative pool. And that is why they should not be allowed to vote in GOP primaries.
Even back in 2008, exit polls show that McCain would have lost the early primaries and been out of the race if only Republicans had been allowed to vote. Open primaries, or semi-open primaries hurt conservatives. We got another good example of that in Mississippi this year. And who have been the biggest recent cheerleaders of keeping our primaries semi-open? A pair of Big Government Republicans, Skip Stam and Thom Tillis. They led the fight against the conservative effort to close primaries a few years ago.
UAVs are the fasting growing voting block. UAVs are not happy with either party. There is really isn’t much difference between the two. One is for huge government control and the other is for big government control. Reagan Democrats and Reagan conservatives make up a lot of the UAV block.
Not according to this poll which shows UAV voters are to the left of average voters as they are more favorable to Obama than the average voter. That is not a group we need voting in Republican primaries if we want to nominate conservatives.
The primary is over. I agree with you, I’m against the current primary structure but the poll is about the general election. Tillis has not made the case why we should vote for him. People are voting against Hagan bu that doesn’t mean they will vote for Tillis. To date, Tillis is running a weak campaign because he is a weak candidate. He’s also teamed up with a weak governor but they all bow to Karl Rove who has a terrible election record. .His establishment candidates have been losing in election cycle after election cycle yet he makes millions while Rome burns.