Raleigh, NC – Fresh off his lopsided Primary victory in North Carolina, Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) is struggling to connect with Sen. Clinton’s (D-NY) supporters according to the Civitas Institute’s May DecisionMaker poll.
Among all voters, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) leads Sen. Obama 44-39; however, only 58 percent of Democrats said they would vote for Senator Obama. 22 percent would vote for McCain while 20 percent were unsure. Conversely, McCain is garnering 77 percent of Republican support, with 11 percent choosing Obama and only 12 percent unsure.
“At this time, Senator Obama clearly has a problem with the base Democratic voter in North Carolina,” said Francis DeLuca, Executive Director of the Civitas Institute. “Obama is failing to recapture the Hillary voters to broaden his appeal.”
Another example of Obama’s failure to capture Clinton’s voters is evident in the breakdown of the vote by race. Only 27 percent of white voters say they plan to vote for Obama, however Obama is capturing 90 percent of the African-American vote.
“It appears Sen. Obama is a very polarizing figure and his failure to appeal to white Democratic voters tends to reinforce the validity of Clinton’s argument that she would have a broader appeal in the General Election,” DeLuca continued.
Obama is garnering less white Democratic support than other statewide Democratic candidates. Among white Democrats, 43 percent support Obama, 55 percent support Bev Perdue for Governor and 60 percent support Kay Hagan for U.S. Senate (Full results of those races coming late).
Obama has not garnered more than 39 percent of the vote in any of Civitas’ polling in North Carolina.
February – McCain 46, Obama 36
April – McCain 48, Obama 39
Click here for full results and crosstabs.
The study of 800 registered voters was conducted May 14-17 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 800 interviews (registered voters) will be within +-3.7% 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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