Poll shows remarkable pro-Democratic trends in NC

Retired Democratic consultant Gary Pearce partnered with Change Research to conduct a poll of the political landscape in our state. Gary, who also blogs at the Substack Garypearcenc, shared the poll with me. What struck me more than the horserace findings were results that seemed to illuminate a broader shift taking place in North Carolina politics. The decades-long effort to make North Carolina a truly purple state may be starting to bear fruit.

The toplines of the poll were favorable to Democrats. In the Senate race, Roy Cooper leads Michael Whatley solidly, 50% to 49%. Analysts (particularly optimistic Republicans) keep predicting that the race will “tighten.” But despite running months of harsh, provocative attack ads, Whatley has not gained any ground against Cooper. The poll did show something about the dynamics of the race that surprised me: Cooper’s numbers have fallen into negative territory. I do not, however, think that his decline portends an imminent surge for Whatley. It’s simply not that difficult to raise a politician’s negatives in this intensely anti-political climate.

Democrats also lead on the generic legislative ballot and Josh Stein remains popular. These numbers reflect that Democrats are in a strong political position at this moment. But the political environment is always fluid and, more than once, North Carolina Democrats have seen healthy summer leads end in bitter disappointment when voters cast their ballots in the Fall. I don’t think the boost this poll gives to Democratic spirits, however, will be merely ephemeral. That’s because the poll showed trends favorable to Democrats that I have never seen in polling in North Carolina.

The most remarkable finding was that the Democratic Party was slightly more popular than the Republican Party. The gap was scant: Democrats were underwater by 20 points while Republicans were underwater by 22. But that finding is so starkly at odds with everything I have ever seen in a North Carolina poll that I cannot dismiss it as a minor triviality. For years, North Carolina Democrats have been encouraged to see their Republican opponents unpopular, but quickly chastened to learn that their party’s favorability was even worse.

This was the case when Democrats were most desperate to defeat Republicans, as in the brutal, historic legislative session of 2013. The Democratic brand was just chronically weak. But now, after many years in which they lagged Republicans no matter how destructive the GOP’s radicalism was, the Democrats have become pulled even with the Republicans. Even if it doesn’t last, the fact that the state was even capable of rating the Democrats more favorably than the Republicans seems to reflect a landmark shift in the state’s political dynamics.

Like the Republican Party itself, Donald Trump has proven frustratingly resilient in North Carolina. No politician better illustrates Republicans’ ability to overperform their polls here than the Orange Autocrat. Even more so than in other battleground states, he has maintained unshakeable support from white, rural, very conservative voters, and those people are numerous enough in North Carolina to have kept Trump as king of the mountain no matter how bitterly we loathed him in the suburbs. Polling tended to reflect that staying power in that he was seldom for than 3-5 points underwater here, no matter his standing in the broader country.