Public Policy Polling's Latest Poll is Good News for Democrats

Public Policy Polling released its latest polls on Monday and Tuesday and the news is good for most Democrats.

The general election match ups are a bit puzzling. McCain leads Obama by seven in this state and Clinton by eight, so it looks like Obama has a tiny edge. Here's the kicker, though. In the McCain / Obama match up McCain's number jumps by three points. Against Clinton, 46% say they will vote for McCain and against Obama 49% say they will vote for McCain. I don't know if a firm conclusion can be drawn from this, but it looks like Barack Obama not only excites more Democrats to vote for him but he also excites more Republicans to vote for his opponent. Still, the race is closer with Obama on the ticket in North Carolina and if his team continues to register and energize voters we will see it tighten even more. The Rasmussen poll on these match ups shows both races with tighter margins.

As I expected, PPP's numbers for the U.S. Senate race are a bit different from Rasmussen's numbers. They show Kay Hagan trailing Dole by 5 (48 Dole to 43 Hagan) which is different than the Rasmussen poll from last week. That poll may have shown a bit of a post-election bump as someone mentioned in an earlier thread and there may still be a little bit of that bump remaining in these numbers. However, trailing by only five points at this point in time is excellent positioning as long as Hagan continues to raise money to get her message and name out. The really good news is pointed out by Tom Jensen of PPP.

Hagan is winning big among voters whose top issues are the economy (51-39) and the war (57-36.) Those are the biggest issues for voters in the state, but Dole leads by even larger margins on wedge issues like immigration (89-8) and moral and family values (82-10).

In other words, Hagan isn't winning the votes of people who were never going to vote for her anyway and she is leading among the voters who are concerned about the top issues for North Carolina voters.

Both polls show that Democrats have work to do if we want to keep a Democrat in the top spot in North Carolina. Bev Perdue and Pat McCrory are tied at 45 each in the PPP poll and the Rasmussen poll shows McCrory leading Perdue 45 - 39. Tom Jensen doesn't seem to think those numbers are credible given the numbers for Hagan, Obama and Clinton. I agree with him. There's no doubt the negative campaign took its toll, but Perdue has time to overcome that. Still, we may have a fight on our hands in this race.

Our Council of State races look very encouraging. Tom admits they polled the Wood/Merritt race using the name "Les Merritt" instead of "Leslie Merritt", which is the way he tends to have it listed on the ballot. However, Beth Wood leads Merritt 41% to 32%. Merritt has stepped in it a few times and it is incumbent upon us to continue to remind our readers of this.

Currently Walter Dalton leads Robert Pittenger by three points. I don't think this is going to be a problem. I imagine that Dalton, being a seasoned campaigner, knows all about Pittenger's real estate deals and alleged use of public office/connections to sweeten those real estate deals. I'm betting the rest of the voting public will know about them soon enough.....one way or another.

Bill Daughtridge and Janet Cowell are just about tied. Daughtridge is at 38 and Cowell is at 37. The last thing we want is a Republican in charge of the state retirees' money so we need to work hard to help Janet Cowell. Jensen's take:

The 252 area code tends to be Democratic territory but it's also Daughtridge's home ground and for now he's carrying it 42-39 even as every other statewide Democrat has a double digit lead there. That's helping to balance out Cowell's female advantage.

Roy Cooper's got it in the bag. He leads Bob Crumley 47 - 34.

Other races:

Secretary of State

Elaine Marshall 48
Jack Sawyer 32

Superintendent

June Atkinson 42
Richard Morgan 36

Agriculture Commissioner

Steve Troxler 42
Ronnie Ansley 34

This is the only Council of State Race where the Republican leads the Democratic candidate.

Insurance Commissioner

Wayne Goodwin 40
John Odom 33

Go Wayne, Go! What can I say about this race that we don't already know? We've heard Wayne speak and we've read his thoughtful answers to our questions here at BlueNC. I can only imagine that other voters who come in contact with Wayne throughout the course of the campaign will feel the same way most of us do here.

PPP's results for state races can be found here and the results for national races are here. Tom Jensen's posts on the different races can be found here.

All in all, I think there is a lot of great news in the most recent poll. What do you think?