New numbers from Public Policy Polling collected in North Carolina this past week provide some interesting insight into where voters stand during this current election cycle, especially when it comes to the Senate race between Democrat Cal Cunningham and incumbent Republican Thom Tillis.
Director of Public Policy Polling in Raleigh Tom Jensen recently spoke with 97.9 The Hill’s Aaron Keck about the results of the poll and what they could mean in regards to the upcoming elections.
Expected Democratic candidate Joe Biden currently holds a 50-46 lead over Republican President Donald Trump in North Carolina’s presidential race, a margin that has remained relatively consistent over the last three months. Jensen said that consistency emerged when it became clear that Trump wasn’t taking the coronavirus pandemic seriously enough.
With Biden’s lead being so slim, though, Trump could still flip the state back in his favor.
The biggest obstacle the president faces, according to Jensen, are undecided voters who don’t like either candidate. Many of those people seem to be leaning towards Biden at the moment with less than four months until election day.
Jensen said for Trump, it’s a similar situation to one he benefited from in 2016 where Republicans who didn’t vote for him in the primary still decided they would prefer him to a Democrat.
“You have some Biden voters who are sort of grudging Biden voters,” said Jensen. “They’re people who wanted Bernie Sanders as the Democratic candidate or maybe even Elizabeth Warren as the Democratic candidate. They still don’t like Joe Biden, but they’re going to vote for him before they vote for Trump. It’s the kind of thing where it doesn’t really matter if they like you or not, as long as they vote for you.”
While the presidential race is still close and not many people are left undecided, the Senate campaign in North Carolina has started to see some separation between the two candidates. Many voters have yet to make their decisions, but Cunningham leads Tillis by eight points with a margin of 47-39.
An analysis of the undecided voters showed that they are primarily Republican, with Trump holding a 20-point advantage in the presidential race among those people. That number is significantly down from what was a 48-point advantage in 2016, however, which Jensen said is a red flag.
“What that tells me,” he described, “is that those folks are people who have generally voted Republican who aren’t sure if they want to vote Republican at all this year. Tillis has a problem on one hand with people who love Trump and don’t like him, so he’s struggling with them. And then Tillis also has this problem with people who voted Republican last time around, who are so unhappy with Republicans that this time around they don’t know if they want to vote for either Trump or Tillis.”
Although Tillis could close the gap on Cunningham with more support among the undecided voters, said Jensen, the incumbent senator finds himself in quite an interesting situation. The impact Trump has within the Republican party has created internal conflict among those voters, to the point where no message easily appeals to both sides.
“What’s interesting is that what you need to do to win over those two groups of people is the opposite,” Jensen said. “Because the people who love Trump and don’t like Tillis, it’s because he hasn’t been “Trumpy” enough. And then the people who voted for Trump last time, but this time aren’t for either Trump or Tillis, they clearly don’t like what Trump’s done as president. Tillis being “Trumpier” is not going to make him appeal to those people. So, Tillis is a little bit caught between a rock and a hard place.”
To view the latest poll of North Carolinian voters from Public Policy Polling, visit the company’s website.
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