Analyzing the State Legislative District Polling – Where Things Stand Now: Part 1

As we move into the dog days of August, the calendar will quickly turn to September and election season will be in full swing.  Before that begins, it makes sense to stop and see what the landscape looks like right now by analyzing some of the details of the legislative district polling that Civitas has done over the past couple of months.

Part 1: Unaffiliated voters on the move

Unaffiliated voters are the fastest growing segment of voters in North Carolina and there doesn’t seem to be anything to change that fact anytime soon.  Since January 2009, the number of registered Democrats in North Carolina has decreased by 106,000 – for Republicans it has decreased by 60,000 voters, but the number of unaffiliated voters has actually grown by 35,000 to more than 1.4 million voters (23.36% of all voters).

In 2008, those unaffiliateds were supporting Democrats by wide margins.  In Civitas statewide polling in October 2008, unaffiliateds favored Democratic legislative candidates on the generic ballot by a 37-29 margin.  But things have shifted 180 degrees in less than two years.

In Civitas’ July 2010 statewide poll, unaffiliateds now support Republican legislative candidates on the generic ballot by a 31-27 margin.  This may be an overly conservative estimate of unaffiliateds move towards the GOP.  According to Democratic polling firm Public Policy Polling’s latest statewide survey, they have unaffilateds breaking 42-18 for Republicans over Democrats.

If we turn our attention to Civitas’ district polling, the advantage for Republicans among unaffiliateds becomes more evident.  In only one of the 15 districts polled do Democrats have a generic ballot advantage with unaffiliated voters.  However, it seems to be nothing more than an aberration when looking at the other 14 districts.  The smallest lead in the remaining districts is 11 percentage points in HD 116 (44-33) and ranges upwards to a 45-percentage point lead (60-15) in Senate District 1 (Basnight).

The chart of all districts is below:

Generic Ballot Unaffiliateds
	%Dem	%GOP	GOP Margin
SD 43	17	50	+33
SD 45	26	40	+14
SD 50	30	48	+18
SD 9	24	45	+21
SD 8	20	52	+32
SD 10	36	34	-2
SD 19	13	48	+35
SD 25	15	57	+42
SD 1	15	60	+45
HD 116	33	44	+11
HD 25	14	43	+29
HD 6	14	52	+38
HD 51	25	54	+29
HD 36	29	43	+14
HD 103	26	47	+21

If unaffiliateds are the deciding swing voters in competitive legislative districts, these numbers should give Democratic candidates concern.  The fact that their support never climbs above 36 and in many cases never gets out of the teens, should be a wakeup call that those voters who swept Democrats into office in 2008 have shifted course  and are unhappy with the current direction.

In part two, we’ll explore just what issues are driving these unaffiliated numbers – and it’s not just the weak economy, there’s a undercurrent that is motivating unaffiliated voters.