McCrory, Obama approvals tick downward

President Obama continues his slide, as only 40% of North Carolina voters approve of the job he’s doing, compared to 54% who disapprove. The 14% gap is up from an 11% gap in December, when voters disapproved of him 44/55, and it represents one of his lowest approval ratings since being in office.

Things aren’t going well for Pat McCrory either. Only 37% of voters approve of the job he’s doing, versus 47% who disapprove. These numbers are down from December, when 42% of voters approved, and they signal the end of McCrory’s three-month rally, where his poll numbers had modestly improved after bottoming out in September.

Statewide, voters across party lines think McCrory should replace DHHS Secretary Adolna Wos (37/17 among Democrats, 41/12 among Republicans). The General Assembly is still wildly unpopular (17/53), although Republicans now have a slight lead in the generic ballot for state legislature (43% would vote for a Republican, 42% for a Democrat). Democrats had been leading in our December poll (45/43).

Voters support a raise in the minimum wage to $10/hour (57/35), with even 31% of Republicans supporting. Voters in both parties, however, agree that North Carolina teachers are paid too little (82% of Democrats, 60% of Republicans) and would support raising teacher pay to the national average over four years (79/11).

“There’s a strong bipartisan agreement with Jim Hunt that North Carolina should bring its teacher salaries up to the national average,” said Dean Debnam, President of Public Policy Polling. “This could be the winning issue for Democrats in the state in 2014.”

As for national issues, voters think Congress should continue unemployment benefits (64/31), although 44% of Republicans strongly feel Congress should cut off benefits. Our poll seemed to be too early to capture any of the effects from the Christie Administration’s lane closures: he still leads Hillary Clinton in a hypothetical general election 43/42, down only slightly from leading 45/42 last month.

PPP surveyed 1,384 North Carolina voters, including 575 Republican primary voters, from January 9th-12th. The margin of error for the overall survey is +/- 2.6% and for the Republican primary part it’s +/-4.1%. 80% of interviews for the poll were conducted over the phone with 20% interviewed over the internet to reach respondents who don’t have landline telephones.