Poll: NC Voters Favor Cunningham in Senate Race, While Presidential Race is a Tossup

A recent poll of North Carolina voters revealed how some of November’s biggest races are shaping up and reflects how it will once again be a top battleground state.

Public Policy Polling said the results of its recently-conducted poll show the presidential race between presumed-Democratic candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden and incumbent Republican President Donald Trump is very close in the early stages. 48 percent of responding residents said they would vote for Biden compared to 47 percent for Trump.

Director Tom Jensen spoke with 97.9 The Hill’s Aaron Keck about the poll’s results. He said the remaining undecided voters are ones that responded as Democratic-leaning.

“I think they are folks who probably supported Bernie Sanders and they don’t like Joe Biden very much but they are anti-Trump and are generally voting Democratic. So I think it’s going to be a question of whether those people come around to Biden or not.”

Jensen said the poll was conducted following both Sanders and former president Barack Obama’s endorsements of Biden, meaning they may not have immediately shifted how those undecided voters will cast their ballots.

“I think Biden still has some more work to do to shore up party unity,” said Jensen, “but overall, it’s good for him to be in a tossup situation in North Carolina. For him, [the state] would be icing on the cake, it’s unlikely to be key to him getting 270 electoral votes. He does, perhaps, have more room to grow here than Trump does.”

The PPP poll also asked voters their early preferences in the state’s U.S. Senate race. Democratic challenger Cal Cunningham holds a seven-point lead over Republican incumbent Thom Tillis, 47-40, say the results. It’s a slight increase from the Raleigh-based company’s last poll of the race, when Cunningham led Tillis 46-41.

Jensen said while the poll is “eye-opening,” he expects Tillis to have more room to grow leading up to November.

“Democrats are a lot more unified around Cunningham than Republicans are around Tillis,” he said. “I think in the end, Republicans usually do unify around their candidate whether they love them or not. Even though we have Cunningham with a seven-point lead, I think of it as being more of a three-point or a four-point lead.”

In addition, Democratic Governor Roy Cooper has a double-digit lead over Republican challenger Lieutenant Governor Dan Forest. The poll said voters favor the incumbent by 14 points, 50-36, and 69 percent said they believe the state government has had the right response to the coronavirus pandemic.

“We’ve talked a lot about how for governors and presidents, handling a crisis well is a great path to getting yourself into a better political position,” said Jensen. “I know Governor Cooper would’ve rather this [pandemic] have never happened, but the fact he has handled it well has given him an opportunity to shore up his standing. Now, Cooper is pretty clearly favored for re-election.”

To see the full results from the poll of North Carolina voters, visit Public Policy Polling’s website.

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Poll: NC Voters Favor Cunningham in Senate Race, While Presidential Race is a Tossup

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