Cooper's numbers drop as Trump's increase in North Carolina

by Matt Caulder, Capitol Connection, October 30, 2017.

The Civitas Institute released its latest poll numbers at a luncheon last week showing Gov. Roy Cooper’s favorability below 50 percent for the first time since beginning polling the new governor’s favorability in February.

The change represents a 10 percentage point drop in approval from his May numbers, and eight of those points seem to have flowed over to his unfavorable, which increased from 25 percent in May to 33 percent in October.

Cooper is still 15 points on the plus side, however, with a favorable rating of 48 percent, with 14 percent of respondents saying that they have no opinion of Cooper or have never heard of him.

Looking to the White House, President Trump’s favorability is at 46 percent, while his unfavorable rating is at 49 percent. Trump’s favorability has not overtaken his unfavorable rating since Civitas began polling the question in April of 2016, however his favorability has increased from 30 percent to 46 percent in that timeframe.

Looking at job approval ratings for Cooper and Trump did not bear out extensively different results.

Cooper’s approval rating polled at 53 percent and his disapproval rating at 34 percent, changing from 61 percent and 24 percent respectively in May.

Though Cooper is still on the right side of 50 percent, his approval did drop eight points over the last five months.

Trump however saw a five point increase in approval from 42 percent in May to 47 percent in October, while his disapproval rating dropped by three points over that time.

Civitas also polled the approval ratings of the state Attorney General Josh Stein and Lieutenant Governor Dan Forrest.

Stein showed a 29 percent approval rating paired with a 16 percent disapproval rating, with the remaining 55 percent having no opinion or not knowing who Stein was.

Forrest had more recognition and approval, though not by much.

Forrest polled at a 35 percent approval rating and a 13 percent disapproval rating, with 51 percent not knowing who Forrest was, or having no opinion about his job performance.

For the poll, 600 likely voters were called, meaning that they either voted in the last election or registered since the last election.

Thirty-percent of the respondents were reached on a cell phone.

Forty-eight percent of respondents were men and the remaining 52 percent were women and the majority of respondents had some form of college degree or certification.

The largest group of respondents were Democrats at 42 percent, 34 percent were Republicans and the remaining 24 percent unaffiliated voters.

The poll had a 4 percent margin of error and was out in the field Oct. 16-18.

http://nccapitolconnection.com/2017/10/30/gov-coopers-approval-drops-as-trumps-numbers-increase/