Civitas Poll Shows McCrory Support Shifts in Key Voting Bloc

August 27, 2015

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT: Francis De Luca (919) 834-2099        francis.deluca@nccivitas.org

RALEIGH – A new Civitas Poll of registered, unaffiliated North Carolina voters shows Gov. Pat McCrory trailing Attorney General Roy Cooper in a hypothetical gubernatorial race.

Asked whom they would vote for if the election were held today, 32 percent of voters would back Republican Gov. Pat McCrory, 34 percent would cast their ballots for Democrat Cooper, and 33 percent were undecided or were leaning toward one of the candidates.

“This number is interesting as it compares with the 44 percent of unaffiliated voters who said in a June Civitas Poll that they would support McCrory. Although the June poll included a smaller sampling of unaffiliated voters, such a shift may be a concern for McCrory’s advisors,” Civitas President Francis De Luca said.

The poll surveyed 400 registered North Carolina voters, 30 percent of whom were reached on cell phones. The survey was taken August 10-12 and had a margin of error of plus/minus 4.9 percent.

Following is the exact wording of the relevant questions:

Thinking ahead to 2016 for a moment… If the election for North Carolina Governor were being held today, and you had to make a choice, for whom would you vote if the candidates were: (ROTATE) Pat McCrory, the Republican, and Roy Cooper, the Democrat?

32%     Total McCrory
34%     Total Cooper
33%     Total Lean/ Undecided
21%     Definitely McCrory
12%     Probably McCrory
6%       Lean McCrory
20%     Undecided
7%       Lean Cooper
13%     Probably Cooper
20%     Definitely Cooper
1%       Refused

Now I am going to read you a list of people and organizations active in politics. After I read each name, please tell me if you have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of that person or organization. If you have never heard of them just tell me and we’ll go on to the next one…the (first/next) one is…(RANDOMIZE)

FAVORABLE     UNFAVORABLE    HEARD OF NO OPINION         NEVER HEARD OF

Barack Obama

46%                     44%                             9%                                                 —

 

Pat McCrory

36%                    43%                              19%                                              2%

 

Richard Burr

25%                    28%                              33%                                             14%

 

Roy Cooper

26%                    14%                              29%                                            32%

 

The North Carolina Democratic Party

34%                    39%                              25%                                            2%

 

The North Carolina Republican Party

31%                     45%                              22%                                            2%

 

Do you approve or disapprove of the job that Barack Obama is doing as President?

50%     Total Approve

48%     Total Disapprove

20%     Strongly Approve

29%     Somewhat Approve

11%     Somewhat Disapprove

37%     Strongly Disapprove

2%       Undecided/Don’t Know

—          Refused

Totals may not equal 100 percent, because of rounding.

Crosstabs for poll here.

About the poll: This poll of 400 registered voters in North Carolina was conducted August 10-12, 2015 by National Research, Inc., of Holmdel, NJ. All respondents were part of a fully representative sample of registered general election voters in North Carolina. Thirty percent of the respondents were cell phone-only users. For purposes of this study, voters interviewed had to have voted in at least one of the past two general elections (2012, 2014) or be newly registered to vote since November 1, 2014. The confidence interval associated with a sample of this size is such that: 95 percent of the time, results from 600 interviews (registered voters) will be within +-4.9% of the “True Values.”

For more information on Civitas polling, see http://www.nccivitas.org/category/poll/.

For more information, contact Jim Tynen or Demi Dowdy at 919.834.2099. Email: jim.tynen@nccivitas.org, or demi.dowdy@nccivitas.org.

Founded in 2005, the Civitas Institute is a Raleigh, NC-based policy organization committed to creating a North Carolina whose citizens enjoy liberty and prosperity derived from limited government, personal responsibility and civic engagement. To that end, Civitas develops and advocates for conservative policy solutions to improve the lives of all North Carolinians. Towards that end, Civitas provides research, information and training to:

• empowercitizens to become better civic leaders and more informed voters;
• educateemerging public leaders, enabling them to be more effective in the democratic process; and
• informelected officials about citizen-based, free-market solutions to problems facing North Carolinians.