PPP: As Legislature Quarrels, Hagan Expands Lead

by | Jul 22, 2014 | 2014 Elections, Carolina Strategic Analysis, Features, NCGA, Poll Analysis, Polling, US Senate | 3 comments

The plan this year was for the General Assembly to convene, give teachers raises, make some tweaks to the budget, and then get out so they can campaign. So far, it hasn’t worked out that way. The legislature is still in session, and it doesn’t look like they’re going to go home any time soon. The big loser in this? Thom Tillis.

PPP just released their latest poll on the U.S. Senate race. Hagan has expanded her lead from 5 points to 7 points. Most internal campaign polling has Hagan up by low single digits. Whatever, it’s clear that right now Hagan has the advantage, and the trendline is clear: the legislative session has done no favors for the Tillis campaign.

Hagan’s lead is being propped up by Sean Haugh, who is still taking 8% of the vote. Alert followers of polls will notice that’s a decline of 3 points from the last PPP poll, when Haugh was taking 11%. It looks like he’s already peaked and will continue to decline for the rest of the campaign.

OK, enough prologue. Let’s get on to the poll.

General election
Hagan – 41% (+2)
Tillis – 34% (no change)
Haugh – 8% (-3)

Hagan is up 2, Haugh is down 3, while Tillis’s support is steady. 17% of voters are undecided. The question, of course, is who they’re going to go for in the end, and finally, what the composition of the electorate will be. This is a registered voters poll. PPP will probably switch to likely voters next month. When that happens, and the legislature is (hopefully) no longer in session, Hagan’s lead could evaporate.

Favorable/Unfavorable
Numbers in parentheses: net favorability. Next number: change from last month.
Hagan 40/50 (-10) -6
Tillis 24/47 (-23) -1

Hagan has a 40% approval rating. She’s right at 50% disapproval. That is not good news for an incumbent. Tillis’s favorable numbers, however, are worse, though they haven’t gotten much worse from last month. There’s really nothing one can infer based on these numbers, but suffice it to say whoever wins this year will probably be seen as the lesser of two evils.

Obama Approval
41% Approve (no change)
53% Disapprove (no change)

Hagan and Obama’s numbers match very closely. Hagan’s are just a little bit better (but she’s also less known). The more popular Obama is, the better a chance Hagan has at this. But that’s not exactly news.

Supreme Court Race
Robin Hudson – 21% (+1)
Eric Levinson – 14% (-1)

Who are these people?

General Assembly Approval
19% Approve (+1)
57% Disapprove (+3)

Last month, the legislature’s numbers were 18/54. I’ve written on this extensively in the past: the General Assembly is never going to be popular, no matter who controls it. And less people care what’s going on in Raleigh than one might think. That said, it is a negative to be the leader of a body with such a low approval rating, and the longer the legislature remains in session, the more it’s going to hurt Tillis in the fall campaign.

Legislative Republicans Favorability
31% Favorable (-4)
52% Unfavorable (+5)

For some reason, PPP didn’t poll on the Democrats. Maybe that will be in the next release tomorrow. But still, the numbers show that Republicans are significantly more unpopular than they were last month. (Last month, Democrats had a 32/50 favorable rating, so it’s possible that they’re even more unpopular than the Democrats now).

Without Haugh
42% Hagan (no change)
39% Tillis (+1)

Sean Haugh is Thom Tillis’s least favorite pizza delivery driver in the whole wide world.

To conclude: I think the fundamentals still favor a Tillis victory. Obama is unpopular, Hagan is unpopular. Tillis is the head of the legislature which is unpopular, but I don’t recall any time in the past where voters made their choice based on state issues rather than national issues. I’m not saying it won’t happen this time, but history doesn’t support it. Hagan is going to have tough sledding replicating the Obama coalition, which still failed to bring Obama over the finish line in North Carolina in 2012. Basically, I think voters are ready to fire Hagan. Tillis just has to prove that he’s “good enough.” Is Tillis good enough? We’ll see. The sooner the legislature ends, the better chance that voters will come to that conclusion.

3 Comments

  1. john

    Still trying to put lipstick on this pig, huh?

  2. James Protzman

    You wrote:

    “When that happens, and the legislature is (hopefully) no longer in session, Hagan’s lead could evaporate.”

    Really? “Could evaporate?”

    You’ve been hired to be a partisan ideologue, Get with the program.

  3. Ray

    Skewed sample again.
    D share of electorate: 42%. D share of poll: 44%.
    R share of electorate: 31%. R share of poll: 34%.
    Other share of electorate: 27%. Other share of poll: 22%.

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