Someone recently asked me “why do you rarely post polls?” Well, there are a couple reasons. First, we are pretty far out from the general election. Second, most polls now tend to be national polls, and in the larger scheme, they are meaningless. Obama could beat Romney by 10 million votes, but if Romney wins all the 2004 Bush states he’ll be POTUS.
The important polls are the state polls, and PBO has spent quite a bit of time in potential battleground states giving campaign speeches disguised as official business. And North Carolina is one of those states Obama has focused on. Ed Morrissey covered the poor economy of North Carolina the other day, as well as the issues with the NC Democrat Party and with choosing Charlotte as their convention site. Now, WRAL/SurveyUSA provide a poll that is bad news for Obama, and the headline tells us that Obama Tops Romney In NC
In a head-to-head vote, however, the former Massachusetts governor comes up short against Obama.
SurveyUSA asked 1,636 registered voters in North Carolina who would get their vote for president if the election were held today, and Obama beat out Romney 47 to 43 percent, with 9 percent of voters still undecided. The margin of error in the poll is plus or minus 2.5 percentage points.
“This is going to be a very tight race for the next six months,” said David McLennan, political science professor at William Peace University in Raleigh.
You might be wondering why this is bad news for Obama as the headline states: looking at the poll data (link within the excerpt), we learn that the Republican/Democrat/Independent breakdown is 32/45/20, so, in a poll which heavily over-samples Democrats vs. Republicans by 13, Obama only leads by 4 points. That, my friends, is bad news for Obama. Romney hasn’t even really started campaigning in NC as of yet. Furthermore, there is a good chance that Pat McCrory (R) will win the Governor’s mansion this year. It’s rare that NC has a Republican governor.
Digging deeper into the poll, we see that women, who traditionally break Dem, are over-sampled by 6 points. Only 19% surveyed were over 65, and that group tends to vote heavily. We do have lots of time to go till November, and anything can happen: one candidate can utterly flame-out, as McCain did with his “suspending his campaign” stunt. Those of us can expect many, many disruptive visits from Obama over the next 6 months, as Team Obama can surely read the bad numbers in the poll.
There’s also a poll for Virginia, where Obama leads 51-43. Allahpundit provides the sampling (which removes the need for me to email PPP, as it is not readily provided), which breaks 39D/32R/29I. Again, over-sampling, this time Dems by 7. Which gives Obama a tiny edge, with a long way to go.
Crossed at Right Wing News and Stop The ACLU.
Obama is going to win again. He has a 7% lead in the single largest block of voters,women. Don’t cha just HATE that group