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A new poll from the Civitas Institute found that the Democratic ticket of President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden is 4 percentage points ahead of the Republican slate — presidential candidate Mitt Romney and his running mate, Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan. The Civitas Poll of 600 likely North Carolina voters was taken Sept. 18-19 and had a margin of error of plus-minus 4 percent. Asked if the election were held today who they would vote for, 49 percent chose Obama/Biden and 45 percent chose Romney/Ryan. (This is the first 2012 Civitas Poll to include the vice presidential candidates.)

North Carolina's pace of returned ballots continues to increase, with 2,105 reported as of yesterday. As of this morning, registered Republicans now outnumber registered Democrats among returned ballots accepted by North Carolina election officials by 5.9 percentage points (43.7% to 37.9%). Yesterday, I noted how more registered Democrats had returned mail ballots than registered Republicans, by 4.5 percentage points (43.3% to 38.8%). In 2008, registered Republicans vastly outnumbered registered Democrats among all mail ballots -- not all early voters -- by 25.7 percentage points (53.7% to 30.0%). The cause for yesterday's temporary blip where registered Democrats outnumbered Republicans among returned...

Mitt Romney has cleared the 50% mark again in the battleground state of North Carolina despite the presence of the Democratic National Convention there little over a week ago. The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely North Carolina Voters shows Romney with 51% support to President Obama’s 45%. One percent (1%) likes some other candidate in the race, and three percent (3%) are undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

Breitbart News's Joel Pollak reports from a Paul Ryan event in North Carolina that media is virtually ignoring the thousands attending the event in favor of a few pro-Obama protesters: Thousands of Ryan fans... but MSM cameras/journalists focus on SEVEN Obamabots demonstrating!....

Posted: Sunday, Sep. 02, 2012 MORE INFORMATION Sunday's DNC protests in uptown Charlotte DNC Party Pics 09.2.12 800 march through Charlotte, decrying financial system Politics, personalities and pro wrasslin': How Charlotte won the DNC New N.C. poll gives Romney small lead in presidential race Was that George Clooney jogging down Tryon? UNC panel: Changing demographics leave South’s political future in flux Convention is Obama camp’s not-so-secret weapon in N.C. RALEIGH A Raleigh-based group devoted to reducing the potential for voter fraud presented the N.C. Board of Elections on Friday with a list of nearly 30,000 names of dead people statewide...

Why are we here? Why did the Obama reelection team pick North Carolina for the Democratic convention? As the convention begins, prominent Democrats are still grumbling about that question. They fear the Tar Heel State is no sure win for the president. Recall that in 2008, Barack Obama won North Carolina by 0.4 percentage points over Arizona Sen. John McCain (R). Before that, the state had gone Republican in every presidential election since 1976. Current polls have Obama and Romney tied in the state. When then-President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, he famously told an aide...

Greenville, North Carolina (CNN) – At a Labor Day rally, Republican vice presidential hopeful Rep. Paul Ryan raised the question 'are you better off' and compared President Barack Obama to one-term President Jimmy Carter.

Barack Obama won the state of North Carolina by 14,000 votes in 2008. His return in 2012 was supposed to be triumphant, a celebration of the swing of this formerly red state to the blue column. If his return is underwhelming, what was meant to solidify a new Democratic foothold in the South may actually undermine it.The NY Post reports: Top aides on President ObamaÂ’s re-election team are terrified that there will be scores of empty seats when he makes his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention, party insiders said.Obama, once the biggest draw in politics, wonÂ’t likely attract...

Mitt Romney has a five-point edge over President Obama in the battleground state of North Carolina. The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Voters in the Tar Heel State finds Romney with 49% support, while the president earns 44% of the vote. Three percent (3%) prefer some other candidate, and another four percent (4%) are undecided. This moves the state from Toss-Up Status to Leans Romney in the Rasmussen Reports Electoral College Projections.

Voters in three North Carolina Congressional districts head to the polls today to decide the GOP nominees in runoff elections. The Tar Heel State represents House Republicans’ most fertile territory this cycle, with the party expected to net a gain of at least two seats and as many as four. 8th district The most competitive race tonight is taking place in the 8th district, pitting former Hill aide Richard Hudson, backed by the establishment, against dentist Scott Keadle, a former Iredell County commissioner who is backed by the anti-tax Club for Growth. “We’re finishing strong,” Hudson told Roll Call on...

N.C. Democrats choose first transgender in diverse DNC delegationBy Carmen Cusido The Charlotte Observer Posted: Sunday, Jun. 17, 2012 RALEIGH N.C. Democrats on Saturday selected the remainder of the party’s 158-member delegation to September’s Democratic National Convention in Charlotte. And they did it with an emphasis on diversity. Among those picked Saturday: Janice Covington of Charlotte, the first openly transgender person to serve as a Democratic delegate from the state.“It’s important to my community – to the whole LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) community” – to be a part of the convention, Covington, 64, said. “We’ve always been left...

On Saturday evening, Vice President Joe Biden’s son and Delaware attorney general Beau Biden tried to attack presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney, but the punch ended up hitting North Carolina’s Democratic Gov. Bev Perdue instead. “I’ve never met a successful politician who didn’t run again,” Biden said during his keynote address at the North Carolina Democratic Party’s Jefferson-Jackson dinner, in an attempt to attack Romney’s decision against running for re-election after his sole term as Massachusetts’ governor. (Snip)The crowd “collectively groaned,” according to the

President Barack Obama is rapidly losing support among African-American voters in North Carolina, a new poll out today from the Democratic-leaning Public Policy Polling shows. The poll finds that Mitt Romney would get 20 percent of the African-American vote if the election were held today, compared with 76 percent for Obama. Overall, Romney has a 48 percent to 46 percent lead on Obama in the crucial swing state. Obama received 95 percent of the support from African-Americans in North Carolina in the 2008 election, compared with just 5 percent for Republican nominee John McCain. Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/barack-obama-african-american-vote-black-north-carolina-2012-6#ixzz1xc7BdnRy

Mitt Romney has moved out to an eight-point lead over President Obama in North Carolina after the two men were virtually tied a month ago. The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Voters in the Tar Heel State shows the putative Republican nominee earning 51% of the vote to Obama’s 43%. Two percent (2%) like some other candidate, and four percent (4%) are undecided. That’s a big change from last month when Romney posted a narrow 46% to 44% lead over the president in Rasmussen Reports’ first survey of the race in North Carolina. Democrats have signaled North Carolina’s...

For the third year in a row, a narrow majority of Americans consider gay and lesbian relations morally acceptable, signaling that this is the new “new normal” in public opinion, according to a new Gallup Poll released Monday just days after President Barack Obama announced his support for same-sex marriage. More than half of American adults, 54 percent, say gay or lesbian relations are morally acceptable — including 66 percent of Democrats and just 36 percent of Republicans — while 42 percent think they are morally wrong, Gallup found. Since 2010, a slight majority of Americans have found gay relations...

Gay group starts petition to force Dems to move convention out of NCBy Neil Munro - The Daily Caller | The Daily Caller – 7 hrs ago A gay advocacy group is trying to rally sympathizers to help shift the Democrats’ trouble-plagued convention from North Carolina to another state. The group, Gay Marriage USA, launched a petition on change.org immediately after the state’s voters overwhelmingly decided May 8 to define marriage as a heterosexual institution. The state’s amendment “discriminates against LGBT people, couples & their families [and] in protest, the Democratic National Convention Committee should MOVE its convention… to a...

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama's campaign says he's "disappointed" with North Carolina's constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. Obama campaign spokesman Cameron French said in a Tuesday statement that the ban on same-sex unions is "divisive and discriminatory." French says same-sex couples deserve the same rights and legal protections as straight couples. North Carolinians overwhelming voted Tuesday to amend their state constitution, strengthening a state law that already outlawed same-sex unions.

North Carolina already bans gay marriage by statute. Amendment One goes beyond confining marriage to heterosexual couples; it amends the constitution to also makes marriage between a man and a woman “the only domestic legal union” recognized in the state.

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — North Carolina voters have approved a constitutional amendment defining marriage solely as a union between a man and a woman, making it the 30th state to adopt such a ban. With 35 percent of precincts reporting Tuesday, unofficial returns showed the amendment passing with about 58 percent of the vote to 42 percent against.