Raleigh, N.C. – Amidst ongoing economic woes and record unemployment, unaffiliated voter opinion in North Carolina of Barack Obama’s job performance has not changed since last year.
Forty-four percent of the state’s unaffiliated voters said they approve of the job that Barack Obama is doing as president. Fifty-two percent said they disapprove and five percent said they do not know or are undecided.
These percentages mirror an August 2010 Civitas Institute poll. Half of voters in the 18-25 and 26-40 age demographics approve of Obama’s job performance. This shifts, however, among the older demographics: age 41-55 (39 percent approve – 54 percent disapprove), 56-65 (36 percent approve – 61 percent disapprove), and 66+ (45 percent approve – 52 percent disapprove).
“Unaffiliated voters gave President Obama a large majority of their votes in 2008 but remain wary of his performance,” said Civitas Institute President Francis De Luca.
Gov. Bev Perdue is not faring as well, being seen favorably by 39 percent of unaffiliated voters, while 44 percent hold an unfavorable opinion. This represents a seven percentage point drop in Perdue’s favorability rating since Civitas’ August 2010 poll when her rating among voters was 42 percent favorable to 40 percent favorable (+2 to -5 percent). Voters in all regions hold an unfavorable opinion of Perdue except for Charlotte (44 percent favorable).
“Governor Perdue’s numbers continue to show considerable weakness,” added De Luca. “Her poor polling numbers are highlighted when compared to better numbers for the president and other Democrats among the same groups.”
The Civitas Poll is the only regular live-caller poll of critical issues facing North Carolina. For more information on Civitas polling see http://www.nccivitas.org/category/poll/.
Full Text of Questions:
“Do you approve or disapprove of the job that Barack Obama is doing as President?”
Total Approve – 44%
Total Disapprove – 52%
Strongly Approve – 17%
Somewhat Approve – 27%
Somewhat Disapprove – 17%
Strongly Disapprove – 35%
Don’t Know/No Opinion – 5%
“Now I am going to read you a list of people active in politics. After I read each name, please tell me if you have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of that person. If you have never heard of them just tell me and we’ll go on to the next one: Bev Perdue.”
Favorable – 39%
Unfavorable – 44%
Heard of/No Opinion – 14%
Never Heard Of – 3%
Click here for full results and crosstabs.
This poll of 400 unaffiliated general election voters in North Carolina was conducted August 15-16 by National Research, Inc. of Holmdel, NJ. All respondents were part of a fully representative sample of unaffiliated voters in North Carolina. For purposes of this study, voters interviewed had to have voted in at least one of the past three general elections (2006, 2008, 2010) or be newly registered to vote since November 2, 2010.
The confidence interval associated with a sample of this size is such that: 95 percent of the time, results from 400 interviews (registered voters) will be within +/-4.9% of the “True Values.” True Values refer to the results obtained if it were possible to interview every unaffiliated voter in North Carolina who had voted in at least one of the past three general elections or is newly registered since November 2, 2010.
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