Civitas Poll: Perdue Favorability Continues to Slide

Nearly Half of Voters Have Unfavorable Opinion

Raleigh, N.C. – Governor Bev Perdue’s favorability with North Carolina voters continues to take a nosedive according to results of a new poll released today by the Civitas Institute.

Only 30 percent of North Carolina voters have a favorable opinion of Perdue in July, down six percentage points from Civitas’ June poll.

Forty-four percent of voters now give the Governor an unfavorable opinion, up a similar six points over last month’s results.

Twenty-five percent of voters held no opinion of Perdue.

"Over the past month, Governor Perdue has seen the voters’ opinion of her become increasingly negative," said Civitas Institute Senior Legislative Analyst Chris Hayes. "Her outspoken appeal for new taxes in the current economic situation is further alienating voters from her."

If there is one bright spot for Perdue, it seems she may have temporarily halted the erosion of her base voters. Her favorability rating among Democrats held flat over last month (41 favorable, 29 unfavorable in July vs. 41 favorable, 28 unfavorable in June).

However, the opinion of her among Unaffiliateds and Republicans continues to wane. Her favorability among unaffiliated voters dropped 14 percentage points from 44 percent in June to only 30 percent this month. She now has a negative favorability rating among unaffiliated voters (41 unfavorable, 30 favorable).

"While her public tour in support of tax increases seems to have helped her shore up her base vote, it drove swing voters away. She had an eight point favorable margin with unaffiliated voters last month, that margin is now an 11 point negative," added Hayes. "In just six months into her term as Governor, Perdue has become a very polarizing, unpopular figure in North Carolina."

Stay tuned later in the week for results on the specifics of Perdue’s tax proposal, how she would fare if the election for governor were held today, and whether voters would be willing to recall the Governor.

The Civitas Poll is the only monthly live-caller poll of critical issues facing North Carolina. For more polling information on Civitas polling see www.nccivitas.org/media/poll-results/.

Full text of questions:

Do you have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of Bev Perdue?

Favorable – 30%
Unfavorable – 44%
No Opinion – 25%

Click here for full results and crosstabs.

The study of 600 registered voters was conducted July 14-17, 2009 by Tel Opinion Research of Alexandria, Virginia. All respondents were part of a fully representative sample of registered voters in North Carolina. For purposes of this study, voters we interviewed had to have voted in either the 2004, 2006 or 2008 general elections or were newly registered voters since 2008.

The confidence interval associated with a sample of this size is such that: 95 percent of the time, results from 600 interviews (registered voters) will be within +-4% of the "True Values". True Values refer to the results obtained if it were possible to interview every person in North Carolina who had voted in either the 2004, 2006 or 2008 general elections or were newly registered voters since 2008.