Tag: NC-Sen

Things look increasingly good for Barack Obama and Kay Hagan in North Carolina, but the thing that jumped out at me this morning came from Stuart Rothenberg in his assessment of the senate race.

Dole is increasingly regarded as political roadkill by campaign observers, but reports of her electoral demise may be greatly exaggerated.

Yes, Dole doesn’t have the financial advantage that she should at this time, hasn’t returned to her state often enough, and for too long failed to appreciate the danger that she was in. While her poll numbers were good initially, her popularity nose-dived after Democratic attacks on her ineffectiveness in the Senate.

But the National Republican Senatorial Committee’s independent expenditure effort has begun in the Tar Heel State, and Dole’s campaign has finally become more aggressive. Challenger Kay Hagan remained unscathed (and undefined) until recently, and the GOP attacks are likely to help Dole improve her position in the contest.

Still, that only means that the Republican Senator is in a dogfight and still seriously vulnerable, hardly the position Dole expected to find herself in. Of course, her state is better for a Republican than Oregon is for Smith, and unlike in Oregon, Republicans are only now starting to brand Dole’s Democratic challenger as a liberal big taxer.

This is the first time I had heard of anyone considering Dole to be in such bad shape polls notwithstanding. I was wondering if anyone else is hearing the same thing.

Sounds like they’ve lost that fightin’ spirit:

Former Raleigh Mayor Tom Fetzer and fellow Republican strategist Mark Stephens plan to seek new ventures after the November election, Fetzer said Tuesday.

“We don’t want to do campaigns anymore,” said Fetzer. “We’re old men, and this is a young man’s game.”

Both men are 53 years old. Fetzer and Stephens are both veterans of a host of Republican campaigns in North Carolina and are currently consultants to U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole’s re-election effort. Fetzer served three terms as Raleigh’s mayor in the 1990s.

Stephens was executive director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which helps orchestrate Republican senate races across the country, during the 2005-2006 election cycle, when Dole was the committee’s chairwoman. Republicans lost their majority in the Senate in 2006.

After helping Liddy Dole fritter away the GOP’s Senate majority two years ago and seeing Liddy’s own numbers take a dive in recent weeks, I couldn’t blame these gents for feeling a bit dispirited lately.

(H/T: John Rohrbach)

On the heels of recent polls by PPP and Rasmussen showing Democrat Kay Hagan leading Elizabeth Dole by mid-single digits, Civitas releases a new survey of their own (9/17-20, likely voters, 8/14-17 in parens):

Kay Hagan (D): 41 (41)

Elizabeth Dole (R-inc): 43 (44)

Christopher Cole (L): 5 (4)

(MoE: ±4.2%)

True, Civitas is a Republican group, but their numbers have been mostly in-line with what other reputable pollsters have told us about North Carolina this year, and I have no reason to doubt them — just like I have no reason to doubt Public Policy Polling despite their Democratic sympathies. In any case, Dole is in serious trouble.

Bonus finding: Civitas finds that the Presidential race is tied at 45-45 in North Carolina. Very nice.

Rasmussen (9/17, likely voters, 7/17 in parens):

Kay Hagan (D): 51 (43)

Elizabeth Dole (R-inc): 45 (54)

(MoE: ±4.5%)

Hagan and the DSCC are cutting through Dole’s numbers like a hot knife through butter. Dole’s favorables have plunged from 61-34 in July to 50-44 this month.

These numbers are roughly in line with a recent PPP poll which showed Hagan leading by five points. Great news, all around.

Bonus finding: Rasmussen also finds that McCain leads Obama by 50-47 in the state. Hoo-ah!

(H/T: LanceS)

Public Policy Polling (9/17-19, likely voters, 9/9 in parens):

Kay Hagan (D): 46 (43)

Elizabeth Dole (R-inc): 41 (42)

Christopher Cole (L): 6 (6)

Undecided: 7 (9)

(MoE: ±3%)

Hoo-ah! Those are some damn good numbers for Kay Hagan. What’s driving her success? Well, you could say: It’s the economy, stupid.

58% of voters name the “Economy and Jobs” as their most important issue this year, and incumbency is poison to them: Hagan leads by 57-30 among this group. Tom Jensen has more:

She’s also doing well with North Carolina’s fastest growing group of voters: suburbanites. They now represent a plurality of the state’s voters, and Hagan is the most popular with them of any of the candidates for President, Governor, and Senate. She leads 53-36 with that emerging power broker.

Also contributing to Hagan’s strength is her steady improvement among African-American voters (a group that Dole performed well with in 2002… for a Republican); Hagan now leads by 79-11 among these voters. That’s up from 52-28 in July.

I like this race more and more everyday.

SSP currently rates NC-Sen as a Tossup.

Elon University (9/15-16, residents):

Kay Hagan (D): 35

Elizabeth Dole (R-inc): 35

(MoE: ±4.9%)

Bev Perdue (D): 35

Pat McCrory (R): 37

(MoE: ±4.9%)

First off, this is a strange poll, from a pollster I’ve never heard of before: a poll of North Carolina residents, with no regard to voting likelihood or registration, with a 4.9% MoE, and, judging by the very low numbers, little interest in pushing leaners. (UPDATE: Nor does the poll even give the names of candidates, only asking whether respondents are voting Democratic or Republican in each race!)

On the other hand, the numbers seem quite consistent with what we’ve seen recently: a tied race in the Senate, and a governor’s race moving in the last month from a slight Dem lean to a slight GOP lean. McCain leads Obama 41-35, also plausible.

The Swing State Project is moving its rating of the North Carolina Senate contest from “Lean Republican” to “Tossup“.

Recent polling confirms a dramatic tightening of this race in the past month after the DSCC began unloading a series of advertisements calling into question Dole’s effectiveness in Washington and her ties to Bush and “big oil”. We’ve been waiting to see if Dole could mount an effective counter-attack against Hagan, but we still have yet to see a coherent GOP defense here. Whereas Hagan and the DSCC have chosen their narrative (Dole being an ineffective creature of Washington for the past 40 years) and are driving the message effectively and relentlessly. Dole’s sliding re-elect numbers confirm the shakiness of her position.

On the national scale, most polls are indicating a tight contest — certainly much closer than John Kerry’s performance against Bush in 2004. Democrats have already added over 130,000 voters to their registration advantage over the GOP here since 2006, and Obama’s ground game will be working hard to turn out the base vote. While his campaign is not favored to win the state, Hagan, with more crossover appeal as a down-home Democrat, could be poised to reap the benefits of his operation.

Dole will still be tough to beat, but we can no longer give her the edge in the face of a very effective campaign by Hagan and the DSCC.

Research 2000 for Daily Kos (9/8-10, likely voters, 10/22/2007 in parens):

Tom Allen (D): 38 (33)

Susan Collins (R-inc): 57 (56)

(MoE: ±4%)

Un-sexy. How about North Carolina?

Research 2000 (9/8-10, likely voters, 7/28-30):

Kay Hagan (D): 42 (42)

Elizabeth Dole (R-inc): 48 (50)

(MoE: ±4%)

The same poll also finds Pat McCrory up by 5 points in the state’s gubernatorial race, and John McCain crushing Barack Obama by 55-38. Those numbers fit like peas in a pod with a recent funky SUSA poll, but jive pretty sharply with recent surveys by homeboys Public Policy Polling and Civitas — both firms show McCain with a very small lead over Obama, and PPP still has Hagan edging Dole by a single point. Civitas should be releasing a Senate race poll very shortly.

Additionally, a recent Garin-Hart-Yang poll gave Dole a two-point lead (and McCain a three-point edge).

Pick your poison, I suppose. But I’m a little more inclined to believe the home-state pollsters (PPP and Civitas) over R2K and SUSA.

UPDATE: PPP dismisses R2K’s poll as gibberish.

This is more like it.

Public Policy Polling (9/9, likely voters, 8/20-23 in parens):

Kay Hagan (D): 43 (42)

Elizabeth Dole (R-inc): 42 (39)

Chris Cole (L): 6 (5)

Undecided: 9 (13)

(MoE: ±3.9%)

Ahh, that feels a lot better than that funked up SUSA poll from last night showing Dole up 8 (and Johnny Mac up 20). In this poll, Democrats have a more reasonable 49%-36% advantage in the crosstabs, compared to the one-point GOP advantage in SUSA’s latest and greatest.

Bonus finding: McCain leads Obama by 48-44 in the same poll.

UPDATE by Crisitunity: Bonus bonus finding: Dem Bev Perdue is up over Republican Pat McCrory by only 41-40 in the governor’s race, down from 43-38 in the last PPP poll.

SPECIAL UPDATE by J. Hell: Bev Perdue has released an internal poll by Garin-Hart-Yang (9/5-7): Perdue +6, McCain +3, Dole +2.

http://www.publicpolicypolling…

PPP has a new poll out this morning with Kay Hagan leading Liddy Dole 43-42. This offsets yesterday’s bogus SUSA poll.

Also in the poll:

McSame 48, Obama 44

And the governor’s race:

Perdue 41, McCrory 40