Raleigh, N.C. – Republican candidate Dan Soucek now leads incumbent Democratic Senator Steve Goss in NC Senate District 45 according to a new SurveyUSA poll released today by the Civitas Institute.
According to the poll of 350 registered voters in that district, Soucek leads Goss by a 48%-41% margin. Eleven percent of voters remain undecided in the race. Of the voters who say they are most likely to vote in November, Soucek’s lead grows to 52%-41%.
In the previous Civitas/SurveyUSA poll taken in May, Goss led Soucek by two percentage points, 43%-41%.
“The political climate keeps getting worse for Steve Goss allowing Soucek to grab the lead,” said Civitas Institute Senior Legislative Analyst Chris Hayes. “Voters are continuing to sour on Obama and national Democrats which is dragging down candidates like Goss across North Carolina.
Evidence of the worsening political climate for Democrats can be seen in the growing number of voters in SD 45 who think the state is headed in the wrong direction (64%, up from 59% in May) and the number of voters disapproving of the job Barack Obama is doing as President (65%, up from 59% in May).
Meanwhile, Goss’s net favorability rating has declined (from +23 to +11) while Soucek’s net favorability rating has increased (from +8 to +11).
“Soucek appears to have all the momentum in this race and the political winds are at his back. SD 45 is a heavily Republican leaning district and appears to be returning to its usual dynamics,” added Hayes.
Senate District 45 is rated as an R+10 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.
For full results and crosstabs from the poll, click here.
The survey of 350 registered voters was taken September 14-15 by SurveyUSA on behalf of the Civitas Institute using the Interactive Voice Response (IVR) method. It carries a margin of error of +/- 5%.
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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