Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is leading Republican Donald Trump in North Carolina by a 43-41 margin, according to a survey released by Public Policy Polling on Tuesday.
PPP director Tom Jensen writes when summarizing the results that this is the first lead Clinton has held in the Tar Heel state since March.
Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson (7) and Green Party candidate Jill Stein (2) garnered support from nine percent of respondents combined.
The two-point margin favoring Clinton shrinks to a 47-46 lead in a head-to-head matchup with Trump.
North Carolina has been called a “must-have state” for Trump to have a chance at winning the White House.
While Clinton now leads Trump, Jensen writes that is not due to a change in favorability among those surveyed. Clinton had a 39/55 favorability rating when North Carolina was last surveyed by PPP; she now has a 40/55 rating in the newest results. But Trump saw a seven-point decline in his net popularity over that same time period, now registering at 37/58.
PPP finds that North Carolinians polled have a similar feeling to other Americans in other recent surveys, preferring a continuation of the Obama administration rather than Trump’s vision for the country at a 50/45 rate.
The undecided voters in North Carolina would be overwhelmingly in favor of a third term from President Obama rather than a Trump presidency by 33 points in a hypothetical matchup. Those same undecided voters have a 45/28 favorability rating of Clinton’s Democratic rival in the primary Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders.
To further state how the group of undecided voters feels about Trump, PPP reports the Republican candidate has a 1/94 favorability rating among the group.
Jensen writes that means that these voters will likely either get behind the Clinton campaign or stay home in November. Jensen adds, “At any rate it’s more likely that they’ll build Clinton’s lead than eat into it when they come off the fence, and that’s good news for Clinton given the advantage she already has.”
PPP polled several questions among Trump supporters based off of claims that he has recently made regarding the election. Those results are posted verbatim from PPP below:
-69% of Trump voters think that if Hillary Clinton wins the election it will be because it was rigged, to only 16% who think it would be because she got more vote than Trump. More specifically 40% of Trump voters think that ACORN (which hasn’t existed in years) will steal the election for Clinton. That shows the long staying power of GOP conspiracy theories.
-48% of Trump voters think that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton deserve the blame for Humayun Khan’s death to 16% who absolve them and 36% who aren’t sure one way or the other (Obama was in the Illinois Legislature when it happened.) Showing the extent to which Trump supporters buy into everything he says, 40% say his comments about the Khans last week were appropriate to only 22% who will grant that they were inappropriate. And 39% of Trump voters say they view the Khan family negatively, to just 11% who have a positive opinion of them.
-Even though Trump ended up admitting it didn’t exist 47% of his voters say they saw the video of Iran collecting 400 million dollars from the United States to only 46% who say they didn’t see the video. Showing the extent to which the ideas Trump floats and the coverage they get can overshadow the facts, even 25% of Clinton voters claim to have seen the nonexistent video.
-Trump said last week that Hillary Clinton is the devil, and 41% of Trump voters say they think she is indeed the devil to 42% who disagree with that sentiment and 17% who aren’t sure one way or the other.
We’ve been writing for almost a year that there’s a cult like aspect to Trump’s supporters, where they’ll go along with anything he says. Trump made some of his most outlandish claims and statements yet last week, but we continue to find that few in his support base disavow them.
The public as a whole is a different story though. A number of the things Trump has been in the news for lately have the potential to be very damaging to his campaign overall:
-Vladimir Putin has a 9/63 favorability rating with North Carolinians, and Russia as a whole comes in at 14/51. By a 49 point margin they’re less likely to vote for a candidate Russia is perceived to prefer for President, and by a 33 point margin they’re less likely to vote for a candidate seen as friendly toward Russia. This issue is not doing Trump any favors.
-58% of voters think Trump needs to release his tax returns, compared to only 31% who don’t think it’s necessary for him to. In every state we’ve polled recently we’ve found an overwhelming sentiment that he needs to release them- independents say he needs to 54/33.
-Even though Trump’s own voters might support the approach he took to the Khan family, only 19% overall think it was appropriate to 54% who think it was inappropriate.
-And after his reported comments last week only 38% of voters think Trump can be trusted with nuclear weapons, to 54% who think he can’t be trusted.
You can see the full results of the survey here.
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