Posted on 12/06/2010 12:23:31 AM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
With President Barack Obama flying into North Carolina today, it's a good time to look at whether he could carry the state again.
A recent poll says he'll be in a competitive position in two years.
The survey, by the Democratic-leaning Public Policy Polling, finds Obama leading or close to all potential Republican opponents in the state.
Obama would defeat former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin by 48 percent to 43 percent, would edge former House Speaker Newt Gingrich 46 percent to 45 percent and would tied former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney at 44 percent. He would lose to former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee by a 44 percent to 48 percent.
All of the results were within the margin of error and, therefore, statistically tied.
Obama surprised many in 2008 by becoming the first Democrat to carry North Carolina since Jimmy Carter in 1976, edging out Arizona Sen. John McCain.
PPP recently took a similar poll in Virginia, which also went for Obama in 2008, finding that Obama was leading all Republicans there by five points. The firm found that Obama had lost more independent voters in North Carolina than he had in Virginia during the past two years.
The spin: "It has to be encouraging for President Obama that so soon after some wrote his political obituary, he is already looking just as strong in North Carolina and Virginia as he did in 2008," said Dean Debnam, the president of the Raleigh polling firm. "The remarkable thing is he is doing this well while still losing independents, unlike in 2008."
Obama has an approval rating of 45 percent, while 51 percent disapprove of the job he is doing.
As for Palin, 36 percent view her favorably, while 55 percent view her unfavorably. Gingrich's ratings are 33 percent favorable, 43 percent unfavorable. Huckabee is viewed favorably by 44 percent and unfavorably by 31 percent. Romney is viewed favorably by 33 percent, and unfavorably by 38 percent.
The survey of 517 North Carolina voters was conducted Nov. 19-21 and had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4.3 percentage points.
Voters rate Sens. Burr, Hagan
Republican Sen. Richard Burr, having just come through an easy re-election campaign, is in much better political shape than his Democratic colleague, Kay Hagan.
Burr has a job approval rating of 44 percent and a disapproval rating of 34 percent, according to a survey by Public Policy Polling, a Raleigh-based firm with Democratic leanings.
That compares to Hagan, who has an approval rating of 33 percent and a disapproval rating of 44 percent.
Fortunately for Hagan, she does not have to face the voters until 2014.
The poll of 517 North Carolina voters was conducted Nov. 19-21 and had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.3 percent.
Smith going to Washington
On Tuesday afternoon, Joseph Smith, N.C. commissioner of banks, gets introduced to the Senate Banking Commission. U.S. Sen. Kay Hagan will do the honors. Smith is the White House nominee for director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency.
Smith has been the state's banking commissioner since 2002, and he took an early stand against lending practices that put many low-income people into loans they couldn't afford. No word yet on who might replace Smith in North Carolina.
The FHFA runs Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which are responsible for funding more than half of all home loans made by banks.
“NC is an odd state politically. The NCGOP until recently has been borderline worthless..”
Something has happened there. That was the state of Jesse Helms, John East, and massive landslides for Ronald Reagan. Now they are the state of Nifong, John Edwards, and pure insanity.
No freakin’ way!
Here they go again. Already trying to pick our candidate for us.
Huckabee? They’re insane!
I am convinced they put something in the water here that makes the people this stupid. Not.even.joking.
If an alien landed here and had to take a guess at the demographic breakdown of the entire world just for spending a day in Raleigh. He'd be convinced the world was 70 percent black, 10 percent Muslim and 20 percent all else.
Wonderful (sarcasm off)I am moving from a very conservative county in Georgia to the Raleigh/Durham NC. Company is transferring me. Guess I’m going to have to deal with more commies.
Only because there are so many northern libs moving here! I think the state legislature can redistrict and that may have a profound effect. We are known for outlandish gerrymandering .
I beg your pardon. Most of the libs live in Raleigh,Durham and Charlotte. Mass influx of northerners. The rest of the state is relatively sane.
Yeah, us "dumb southerners" couldn't survive a day without smart ass northeastern Liberals telling us how to do everything. That must be why so many of ya'll are moving here. Couldn't possibly be our dumb low taxes, or our dumb low cost of living, or our dumb Right to Work laws, or our dumb good roads, or our dumb Republican majority Legislatures and Governors who want to keep our dumb way of life. Yeah, we just couldn't survive without the brilliance of northeastern Liberals being injected into our lives every day. Do us dumb southerners a favor and pass the word: Tennessee Sucks!
I’m with you, lots of NC bashing on here. We just totally cleaned house (literally) in NC. Not buying this propganda drivel at all.
Were you born this way or did you actually go to a liberal arts school? The PPP is notorious for under and skewed sampling, and was caught red-handed using a n=population formula when they should’ve been using (n-1)in the denominator. Skews the whole picture from standard deviations to confidence intervals to preconceived conclusions already based on non-representative sampling. But I’m just a dumb southerner, what do I know.
Yeah, and if they do, I am moving out of this benighted state to somewhere in FRee America.
The Raleigh and Durham areas are Obama country. Chapel Hill and Asheville are, too. There may be some Dem strongholds down on the coast, but my understanding is that the rest of the state is more sensible.
I’m pretty sure all the yankees that move here were stupid before they drank our water.
NC also is lousy with “good ol’ boys” who vote democrap because “daddy” always voted democrap. Many fail to understand that “daddy” voted for conservative dims, back when there was such a thing.
My guess is the huge immigration from the liberal Northeast. I am surrounded by people from NY, MD, NJ, DE, etc.
You and riri are welcome to leave anytime you want. Or, as an alternative, you can join the rest of us NC conservatives in fighting the good fight
No doubt about it. That is a huge part of the problem. When I tell people I think it is a little backwards here, they quickly say something about the southerners. I say, "It's not the southerners, it's the north easterners bringing their big government mentality with them.
I was only kidding. I'm not going anywhere. I did online campaigning for Bill Randall (opponent of 'rat Miller, US Rep). With redistricting, he'll probably make it next time, should he decide to run again.
Some of us are working very hard in Wake County to fix that.
There is more than one family that lives in my subdivision that still drives a car with an out of state license plate. Pure speculation on my part, but I would not be surprised if those transplanted northern libs are still registered to vote in another state, while also voting in NC!
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