North Carolina Senate race unaffected by recent developments

PPP’s new North Carolina poll finds Cal Cunningham leading Thom Tillis 48-42. That represents a slight improvement for Cunningham from PPP’s last public poll of the race in late July when Cunningham’s advantage was 48-44.

The news over the weekend is having somewhat of an impact on Cunningham’s favorability rating, with 37% saying they have a positive opinion of him to 39% with a negative one. But that -2 net favorability rating is still 21 points better than Tillis’- he’s at -23 with 31% of voters having a favorable opinion of him to 54% with an unfavorable one.

58% of voters heard about the news over the weekend and among those who did 58% say it doesn’t make a difference in their vote. Most notably among independent voters 69% have heard the news over the weekend…and Cunningham leads Tillis by 19 points with independents at 53-34 anyway. 37% say it makes them less likely to vote for Cunningham, and 3% say it makes them more likely to.

There isn’t a ton of room for growth for Tillis among the people who say the news makes them less likely to vote for Cunningham though- he’s already winning those people 79-10. It really is just Trump voters already predisposed against Cunningham who care about this episode- among non-Trump voters 80% say it will not impact their votes with just 12% saying it makes them less likely to vote for Cunningham.

Joe Biden leads Donald Trump by 4 points for President in the state (50-46), including a double digit lead with independents at 52-41. Only 6% of people who watched the debate last week said it changed their opinion on who to vote for- but those voters are now supporting Biden 74-24, suggesting that Trump’s debate performance may have helped push the state from a toss up into lean Biden territory, at least for the moment.

Roy Cooper leads Dan Forest 52-40 for Governor, a pretty stable finding with PPP’s July poll that found Cooper ahead by 11 points. Voters like Cooper by a margin that pretty well tracks the horse race for Governor (49/38) while Forest is under water on his favorability with 36% of voters having a positive opinion of him to 39% with a negative one.

63% of North Carolinians say they’re ‘very concerned’ about the coronavirus, with another 27% saying they’re ‘somewhat concerned.’ Just 10% say they’re not that concerned.

PPP interviewed 911 North Carolina voters on October 4th and 5th. The margin of error is +/-3.3%.