Trump leads GOP field in North Carolina
Published July 9, 2015
by Public Policy Polling, July 8, 2015.
PPP's newest North Carolina poll finds that Donald Trump's momentum just keeps on building. He's the top choice of Republican primary voters in the state, getting 16% to 12% for Jeb Bush and Scott Walker, 11% for Mike Huckabee, 9% for Ben Carson and Marco Rubio, 7% for Rand Paul, 6% for Ted Cruz, 5% for Chris Christie, 4% for Carly Fiorina, 2% for Rick Perry, 1% each for Lindsey Graham, Bobby Jindal, and Rick Santorum, and less than 1% each for John Kasich and George Pataki.
Trump's favorability rating in North Carolina is 55/32, much higher than we were finding in national polls prior to his entry into the race. Trump's really caught fire with voters on the far right- 66% of 'very conservative' voters see him favorably to only 24% with a negative view of him. Trump is polling particularly well with younger voters (29%) and men (20%).
Jeb Bush had been leading our previous few polls in North Carolina. But he continues to struggle with conservatives. Among 'very conservative' Republicans, only 37% see him favorably to 44% who have a negative opinion of him and only 7% of those voters support him for the nomination, putting him in 7th place in the GOP field. Bush's overall 43/35 favorability is the second worst of any of the 10 candidates we measured that for, besting only Chris Christie's 27/41 standing.
Mike Huckabee has the highest favorability rating of the GOP hopefuls in North Carolina at 65/19. Also with particularly good numbers are Marco Rubio at 57/16 and Ben Carson at 55/10. We're not generally finding those folks at the top of the heap when it comes to preference for the nomination, but they do have a lot of goodwill that might help them move up later.
On the Democratic side Hillary Clinton still has a dominant lead, but things are tightening up some in the way that they are in other places across the country. Clinton's at 55% to 20% for Bernie Sanders, 7% for Jim Webb, and 4% each for Lincoln Chafee and Martin O'Malley. Clinton's dropped from 62% to this 55% standing over the last month, while Sanders has made an almost corresponding lead from 14% to 20%. Webb's up 2 points from a month ago, and Chafee and O'Malley have stayed in place.
The strongest GOP hopefuls for the general election, leading Clinton by 4, are Mike Huckabee at 49/45 and Scott Walker at 47/43. Ben Carson leads her by 3 at 47/44, and Marco Rubio and Rand Paul each have 1 point leads at 47/46 and 46/45 respectively.
The weakest Republicans in the state are Donald Trump and Chris Christie who each trail Clinton by 3 points at 47/44 and 46/43 respectively. Also trailing Clinton are Jeb Bush at 45/43 and Ted Cruz at 47/46. Clinton's tie comes with Carly Fiorina at 45%.
Clinton continues to be far stronger as a general election candidate than any other potential Democratic hopeful. Bernie Sanders would trail Scott Walker by 8 points at 43/35, Jim Webb by 13 points at 44/31, Lincoln Chafee by 14 points at 43/29, and Martin O'Malley by 16 points at 45/29.
Full results here
http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2015/07/trump-leads-gop-field-in-north-carolina.html#more
July 9, 2015 at 9:20 am
Frank Burns says:
When people in NC find out the fact that Trump contributed to the Clinton Foundation, he will be dropped like a hot potato. Scott Walker is the preferred candidate.
