Posted on 07/27/2010 9:15:40 PM PDT by MitchellC
Raleigh, N.C. – Democratic candidate Elaine Marshall faces an uphill battle in the race for US Senate due to low name identification and unaffiliated voters abandoning her by a 44 percent-31 percent margin in favor of incumbent Republican Richard Burr according to a new poll released today by the Civitas Institute.
According to the live caller poll of 600 likely voters, Burr continues to lead Marshall as 44 percent of voters said they would vote for him if the election for U.S. Senate were held today. Thirty-seven percent said they would vote for Marshall, and 15 percent said they were undecided.
Additionally, voters look to be breaking along party lines, increasing the margin of difference between the candidates by 16 points. Republicans lean heavily toward Burr (80 percent-7 percent) while Democrats are in support of Marshall (64 percent-17 percent). Unaffiliated voters, however, are mirroring the statewide trend toward Republican candidates as they would vote for Burr by a 44 percent-31 percent margin.
“Burr continues to maintain a solid lead over Marshall despite the recent TV ads attacking his record,” said Civitas Institute Senior Legislative Analyst Chris Hayes. “With Marshall having very little cross-over appeal to Republicans, her standing with the unaffiliated voter will play a key role come Election Day.”
Though serving as the current North Carolina Secretary of State, Marshall is relatively unknown as 62 percent of voters said they have no opinion or are unaware of her candidacy. Meanwhile, Burr appears to be benefitting from name identification as an incumbent. Twenty-nine percent of voters said they have no opinion of him, while nine percent said they are not aware of his candidacy.
“The unique feature of this race is both candidates’ relatively low name identification. Despite Burr being a US Senator and Marshall having been elected statewide multiple times, many voters are still unaware of either candidate,” added Hayes.
The Civitas Poll is the only monthly live-caller poll of critical issues facing North Carolina. For more information on Civitas polling see www.nccivitas.org/media/poll-results/.
Full text of questions:
Richard Burr
Favorable – 34%
Unfavorable – 29%
No Opinion – 29%
Elaine Marshall
Favorable – 24%
Unfavorable – 14%
No Opinion – 31%
If the election for United States Senate were held today, would you be voting for Republican Richard Burr, Democrat Elaine Marshall, or Libertarian Mike Beitler? If not sure/refused… are you leaning toward: Republican Richard Burr, Democrat Elaine Marshall or Libertarian Mike Beitler?
Burr – 32%
Lean Burr – 12%
TOTAL BURR – 44%
Lean Marshall – 10%
Marshall – 28%
TOTAL MARSHALL – 37%
Beitler – 1%
Lean Beitler – 2%
Not Sure – 15%
Click here for full results and crosstabs.
This poll of 600 likely general election voters in North Carolina was conducted July 19-21, 2010 by Tel Opinion Research of Alexandria, Virginia. All respondents were part of a fully representative sample of registered voters in North Carolina. For purposes of this study, voters we interviewed had to have voted in either the 2004, 2006 or 2008 general elections or were newly registered voters since 2008.
The confidence interval associated with a sample of this size is such that: 95 percent of the time, results from 600 interviews (registered voters) will be within +-4% of the “True Values.” True Values refer to the results obtained if it were possible to interview every person in North Carolina who had voted in either the 2004, 2006 or 2008 general elections or were newly registered voters since 2008. ###
Burr Marshall July 10 PR CTs.pdf
You may have heard about another poll, an internal from the Marshall campaign, showing Marshall ahead by 2 this weekend. As I suspected at the time, a real poll would come out showing it to be crap...
If Burr were running in another year, he’d be in trouble.
No doubt, and if he didn’t have such a massive cash advantage, I’d be really worried about this year, too.
A 44% figure is quite low for an incumbent. Apparently he is not popular in NC, or that state has become a pure purple state now.
she was famous for beating Richard “the King” Petty for the Secretary of State seat in 1996. She also lost in a primary for the US Senate.
While Burr votes right we never hear from or about him.
He needs to get in gear and start campaigning.
I’m not crazy about him but he certainly is better than the alternative.
If anything, the Civitas poll is too kind to Marshall? They define a “likely voter” as someone who voted in either 2004, 2006 or 2008 or has registered since 2008? Probably half of the NC voters meeting such criteria will sit out the (non-presidential, non-gubernatorial) 2010 elections in NC, with black and young voters being greatly overrepresented among those who will stay home. Burr is very fortunate to be running for reelection this year, and may actually get the 55% that no NC Senate candidate has gotten since 1968.
Technically, you could round up Jesse Helms’s 1978 showing to 55% (his best ever). However, Democrat AG Robert Morgan did receive (in the other seat, the current Burr seat) 62% of the vote in the 1974 open Senate contest (which, ironically, was a better showing than Sam Ervin got in 1968 and 1962 along with Everett Jordan in 1966 and 1960, back when the GOP was a very weak statewide party).
Since 1980 (again, in the Burr seat), no winning candidate has received so much as 52% (with just Terry Sanford getting the highest % in 1986 at 51.76%, with Burr himself coming in at the second highest in 2004 at 51.6%). So aside from when NC was a pretty solid one-party state pre-1960, only in the 1974 instance has a candidate won a “landslide” proportion for the Senate of double-digits in the state. If Burr gets to 55%, that will be pretty remarkable (and, of course, he’ll break the curse on that seat).
Thanks. I should have known that the 1974 result must have been lopsided for the Democrat.
It’s 2010 and Marshall is too moonbatty for NC. Burr will win by double digits.
Well, it also helped that Morgan wasn’t a moonbat (he ended up having a 50% ACU rating for his 6 years) and he was running against a Republican who hadn’t sought office in 20 years. Morgan probably could’ve settled in for a long career in the Senate were it not for Jesse Helms flexing his political muscle in 1980 to replace him with his ill-fated protege, John East. Morgan would be the last centrist (if not center-right) Democrat Senator from NC, as all the ones since have been on the far-left (Terry Sanford, Edwards, Hagan).
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