‘Almost inexplicable.’ Two new NC polls show much different results in key races
Who’s leading in North Carolina’s biggest political races?
Depends which poll you look at.
Public Policy Polling released a poll Thursday that showed Democrat Joe Biden edging President Donald Trump 48% to 47% in North Carolina.
On Wednesday, a poll for the Civitas Institute showed Trump leading Biden by seven points, 49% to 42%.
And in the Senate race, one of the most watched in the country, PPP showed Democrat Cal Cunningham leading incumbent Republican Thom Tillis 47% to 40%.
Civitas had Tillis up 38% to 34%, with almost a quarter of the voters undecided and the rest supporting other party candidates.
Civitas is a conservative think tank. PPP often works for Democrats. But their polls are both generally respected.
“The only difference appears to be that Civitas uses live callers and PPP uses robo calls,” said political scientist David McLennan, who oversees the Meredith College poll. “But for president and Senate the differences are vast — almost inexplicable. I don’t think either one typically does a poor job sampling.”
So what’s going on?
“These are polling two different populations,” Civitas President Donald Bryson said Thursday. “PPP did registered voters. We did a poll of likely voters. Registered voter polls skew a little more toward Democrats than Republicans.”
In an email, Tom Jensen, director of PPP polling, said “I wish I could give you some big silver bullet explanation but with margins of error, it just happens sometimes!”
“In April of 2016,” he added, “Civitas had (Democrat Hillary) Clinton up by 9 in North Carolina when we had the race tied, almost the opposite of this situation! . . . This is why it’s always good to just look at the averages rather than fix on individual polls. And also to remember that things can change a lot from April to November.”
Jensen said he doubts Bryson’s registered voters vs. likely voters theory. “That could explain the difference if Republicans were a lot more motivated to vote than Democrats but I don’t think that’s the case,” he said.
Real Clear Politics average of polls, including the latest from PPP and Civitas, gives Trump a 1.3-point lead in the state. The election site 270 To Win gives the president a 3-point lead in its poll average.
In the Senate race, the Real Clear Politics average has Cunningham with a lead of half of one percent.
“In a divided state like North Carolina, we will likely see this back and forth, up and down pattern in public opinion polls between now and November,” said political scientist Michael Bitzer of Catawba College.
For all the differences, both polls showed Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper with a comfortable lead over Republican challenger Dan Forest.
PPP had Cooper up 50% to 36%. Civitas showed him ahead 50% to 33%.
Mistaken tweet
Trump tweeted about the Civitas Poll Thursday — but mistakenly attributed it to OANN, the pro-Trump One America News Network.
“@OANN Poll “Gives President Trump a 52% Approval Rating in North Carolina, and a seven point lead over (Sleepy) Joe Biden,” the president tweeted.
Bryson said he emailed the White House communications office.
This story was originally published April 16, 2020 at 12:10 PM.
