Consistently bad news for the GOP as Cooper tries to run up the score

Three polls released this week show a really tough environment for Republicans.

I hate to write two pieces about polls in the same week, but we’ve just had a flurry of North Carolina polls released within a week of each other. What’s striking is how consistent they are as we head into the final stretch of the midterm election. All indicators point to a rough year for Republicans.

I’ve already gone over the Carolina Forward poll that showed Roy Cooper leading Michael Whatley by seven points, 50-43. It showed Democrats leading the generic legislative ballot by seven points, too. Now two more polls have dropped that essentially confirm Carolina Forward’s findings.

A poll commissioned by Carolina Journal has Cooper leading Whatley by more than eleven points, 51.5 to 39. That poll also has Democrats leading on the generic ballot by five points. In the state Supreme Court race, incumbent Democrat Anita Earls leads Republican Sarah Stevens by four points. Carolina Forward did not test the Supreme Court race.

In another poll commissioned by my fellow blogger and former political consultant Gary Pearce, the numbers are remarkably consistent. Cooper leads Whatley 50-41. Democrats lead the generic ballot by eight. And Earls leads Stevens by six.

After two weeks of failed polling, some people might be skeptical. However, primaries are notoriously difficult to poll and these are general election surveys with a much more predictable electorate. And they are remarkably consistent.

All three polls have Cooper reaching 50%. That’s especially bad news for Whatley and the GOP. Nationally, polls are showing a deteriorating environment for Republicans, specifically in swing states with Senate elections. Fox News polls have Democrat Sherrod Brown leading in Ohio, Democrat James Talarico leading in Texas, and Democrat Troy Jackson leading Susan Collins in Maine. If Whatley can’t significantly close the gap in the next few weeks, the GOP will cut bait in North Carolina to protect other states they need to hold the Senate.

Cooper, for his part, is going hard after swing voters and soft Republicans. He released an ad defining himself as an independent, tough-on-crime Democrat. He denounces defund the police, brags about locking up sex offenders, and touts working with Republicans to keep criminals behind bars and with Donald Trump to stop fentanyl from coming into the state. Cooper is trying to run up the score and if he wins by more than five points, he’ll have coattails all the way down the ballot.

Finally, all three polls have Donald Trump deeply unpopular in the state. Carolina Journal has him underwater by 15 points. Carolina Forward pegs his job approval rating at -14. Pearce’s poll shows it at -18. For comparison, Trump’s approval rating was only eight points underwater at this point in the 2018 election. If this midterm is a referendum on the president, which most are, then Republicans are in big trouble.

As we move into the second half of August, time is running out for the GOP. The consistency of the polls, which were commissioned by groups that span the ideological spectrum, indicates that Republicans will have a tough fall.