Undecided Voters Increasing as Election Nears
Raleigh, N.C. – The race for US Senate in North Carolina remains neck-and-neck with just two weeks remaining until election day. Democratic challenger Kay Hagan maintains a three point lead in her race against incumbent US Senator Elizabeth Dole according to a new poll released today by the Civitas Institute.
According to the live telephone survey of 600 likely General Election voters, Hagan leads Dole 41-38 among those who initially voiced support for a candidate. However, when undecided voters are asked which way they lean, Hagan’s lead becomes to 44-41. Libertarian candidate Chris Cole receives four percent of the vote. 12 percent of voters remained undecided.
“Our polling shows Kay Hagan has sustained the slim lead we first showed in our polling two weeks ago of just three points over Elizabeth Dole,” said Francis De Luca, Executive Director of the Civitas Institute. “The volume and tone of attack ads in this race continues to increase and our poll shows more voters shifting to undecided.”
The percentage of voters who say they are undecided in this race has increased from 10 percent to 12 percent in two weeks.
“As we get closer to the election conventional wisdom would suggest that the number of undecided voters would go down as voters choose a candidate,” added De Luca. “But with this race, the number has actually gone up slightly. With Hagan’s lead inside the margin of error of the poll and the number of undecideds this late in the race, this race will certainly go down to the wire.”
Previous Civitas Poll results:
May – Dole 45, Hagan 43
June – Dole 48, Hagan 38, Cole 1
July – Dole 47, Hagan 38, Cole 2
August – Dole 44, Hagan 41, Cole 4
September – Dole 43, Hagan 41, Cole 6
October 8th – Hagan 45, Dole 42, Cole 3
Click here for full results and crosstabs.
The Civitas poll is the only recurring, live interviewer, poll on issues and politics in North Carolina.
The study of 600 registered voters was conducted October 18-20 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 2002, 2004 or 2006 general election or were newly registered voters since 2006. The voters were interviewed using live callers.
The confidence interval associated with a sample of this size is such that: 95% of the time, results from 600 interviews (registered voters) will be within +-4.2% of the “True Values.” “True Values” refer to the results obtained if were possible to interview every person in North Carolina who had voted in either the 2002, 2004 or 2006 general elections or were newly registered voters since 2006.
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If you would like more information regarding this topic please contact Chris Hayes at (919) 834-2099 or chris.hayes@nccivitas.org.
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