Raleigh, N.C. – According to a new SurveyUSA poll released today by the Civitas Institute, Republican candidate Jim Davis has increased his lead to 16 percent over Democratic incumbent Sen. John Snow, who is looking to maintain his seat in state Senate District 50.
According to the poll of 350 registered voters in that district, 53 percent said they would vote for Davis if the election for state senator were held today, a 9 percent increase since May. Thirty-seven percent of voters said they would vote for Snow, and 9 percent said they are undecided.
Davis’ lead slightly increases to 55 percent-36 percent when looking at those who said they are most likely voting in 2010. He currently has the support of both Republican (83 percent-9 percent) and unaffiliated (59 percent-23 percent) voters in the district. Democratic voters are backing Snow by a 72 percent-23 percent margin.
“Davis has greatly increased his lead over Snow since May when the two were virtually tied, and continues to garner more support from Republican and unaffiliated voters who are abandoning the Democratic party this election season,” said Civitas Institute Senior Legislative Analyst Chris Hayes.
Snow, while better known among voters due to his three-term incumbency, has a -1 favorable rating as his favorability margin stands at 34 percent favorable-35 percent unfavorable. Twenty-five percent of voters said they are neutral, and 5 percent said they have no opinion.
Conversely, 45 percent of voters have an opinion of Davis and his campaign for state senator (29 percent favorable-16 percent unfavorable), for a net +13 favorability rating. Thirty-nine percent of voters said they are neutral, and 16 percent have no opinion of him.
“Snow is facing a difficult re-election bid as anti-incumbent sentiment grows in a leaning Republican district,” added Hayes.
Senate District 50 is rated as an R+6 district on Civitas’ North Carolina Partisan Index – an index that rates the relative partisan voting habits of individual legislative districts. For more on the NCPI, click here.
In addition, 44 percent of the district’s voters believe Snow is a moderate while 36 percent say he is a liberal. Nine percent said he is a conservative, and 11 percent said they are not sure.
For full results and crosstabs from the poll, click here.
The survey of 350 registered voters was taken October 1-3 by SurveyUSA on behalf of the Civitas Institute using the Interactive Voice Response (IVR) method. It carries a margin of error of +/- 5.3%.
This SurveyUSA poll was conducted by telephone in the voice of a professional announcer. Respondent households were selected at random, using Random Digit Dialed (RDD) sample provided by Survey Sampling, of Fairfield CT. All respondents heard the questions asked identically. Where necessary, responses were weighted according to age, gender, ethnic origin, geographical area and number of adults and number of voice telephone lines in the household, so that the sample would reflect the actual demographic proportions in the population, using most recent U.S. Census estimates. In theory, with the stated sample size, one can say with 95% certainty that the results would not vary by more than the stated margin of sampling error, in one direction or the other, had the entire universe of respondents been interviewed with complete accuracy. There are other possible sources of error in all surveys that may be more serious than theoretical calculations of sampling error. These include refusals to be interviewed, question wording and question order, weighting by demographic control data and the manner in which respondents are filtered (such as, determining who is a likely voter). It is difficult to quantify the errors that may result from these factors. Fieldwork for this survey was done by SurveyUSA of Clifton, NJ.
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