NC-02/SurveyUSA-Civitas Institute: Etheridge Grabs Student, Ellmers Grabs Lead

[Tender Branson]

Raleigh, N.C. – With a widely publicized video of a confrontation with two students on a Washington, DC sidewalk circulating, incumbent Democratic Congressman Bob Etheridge now trails Republican challenger Renee Ellmers according to a new SurveyUSA poll released today by the Civitas Institute

According to the poll of 400 registered voters in North Carolina’s 2nd Congressional district, Ellmers leads Etheridge 39 percent to 38 percent. Twelve percent said they would vote for Libertarian Tom Rose and 11 percent said they were undecided.

Etheridge has been in elected office since 1973 and has served in Congress since 1996. With his long career in office the voters know him well, however the recent video has damaged his standing among voters. Of those polled, 40 percent said they have an unfavorable opinion of Etheridge.  While only 25 percent view him favorably. Thirty-three percent said they had no opinion or were neutral. Thus, Etheridge has a net -17 favorability rating when subtracting his favorability rating from his unfavorable rating.

Ellmers, a medical clinic director from Dunn, is relatively unknown to voters.  She is seen favorably by 17 percent of voters and unfavorably by 11 percent.  The remaining 71 percent said they are neutral or had no opinion, for a net +6 favorability rating.

“With the mood of the voters in the second district, this was always going to be a tough race for Etheridge.  However, the video confrontation has vastly complicated his efforts and has now put him in the national spotlight,” said Civitas Institute President Francis De Luca.  “Even prior to the video, Etheridge’s votes on the bailout, health care and Cap and Trade were hurting him with voters.”

Five out of six voters in the district had seen or heard about Etheridge’s on-camera confrontation with two college-aged students who asked him if he supported the Obama agenda.  Of those voters who had seen it, 45 percent said the video made them less likely to support Etheridge now, including 32 percent of Democratic voters.

Ellmers is also benefitting from the low approval ratings for President Obama by receiving support from almost 85 percent of majority voters who disapprove of Obama’s job performance. She also is getting almost 79 percent of the voters who think North Carolina is headed in the wrong direction.

“The second district is a conservative leaning district with suburbs, small towns and farms, the very places that are expressing the most displeasure with the current political agenda in Washington,” added De Luca.  “If Ellmers can capitalize on the national publicity generated by the video and raise the resources to compete with Etheridge’s war chest she will be in a very good position.”

The district is rated as an R+2 district by the Cook Political Report – an index that rates the relative partisan voting habits of individual legislative districts.

For full results and crosstabs from the poll, click here.

http://www.nccivitas.org/media/poll-results/nc-2nd-district-flash-poll

The survey of 400 registered voters was taken June 15-16 by SurveyUSA on behalf of the Civitas Institute using the Interactive Voice Response (IVR) method.  It carries a margin of error of 4.9%.

This SurveyUSA poll was conducted by telephone in the voice of a professional announcer. Respondent households were selected at random, using Random Digit Dialed (RDD) sample provided by Survey Sampling, of Fairfield CT. All respondents heard the questions asked identically. Where necessary, responses were weighted according to age, gender, ethnic origin, geographical area and number of adults and number of voice telephone lines in the household, so that the sample would reflect the actual demographic proportions in the population, using most recent U.S. Census estimates. In theory, with the stated sample size, one can say with 95% certainty that the results would not vary by more than the stated margin of sampling error, in one direction or the other, had the entire universe of respondents been interviewed with complete accuracy. There are other possible sources of error in all surveys that may be more serious than theoretical calculations of sampling error. These include refusals to be interviewed, question wording and question order, weighting by demographic control data and the manner in which respondents are filtered (such as, determining who is a likely voter). It is difficult to quantify the errors that may result from these factors. Fieldwork for this survey was done by SurveyUSA of Clifton, NJ.

http://www.nccivitas.org/media/press-releases/civitas-flash-poll-etheridge-grabs-student-ellmers-grabs-lead

[auburntiger]

Actions like this cannot be tolerated, no matter what party. He needs to go.

[ajc0918]

Actions like this cannot be tolerated, no matter what party. He needs to go.

Agreed.

btw I like the signature, it's good to see other common sense republicans here.

[auburntiger]

Actions like this cannot be tolerated, no matter what party. He needs to go.

Agreed.

btw I like the signature, it's good to see other common sense republicans here.

Why thankyou. I, like you and many others, are pragmatic-minded conservatives and tired of the hypocrisy of both parties and the extreme wings of both parties, though I almost always vote Republican. What part of Florida are you in?

[ajc0918]

Actions like this cannot be tolerated, no matter what party. He needs to go.

Agreed.

btw I like the signature, it's good to see other common sense republicans here.

Why thankyou. I, like you and many others, are pragmatic-minded conservatives and tired of the hypocrisy of both parties and the extreme wings of both parties, though I almost always vote Republican. What part of Florida are you in?

St. Petersburg, home of the Charlie Crist campaign HQ might I add. haha

[auburntiger]

Actions like this cannot be tolerated, no matter what party. He needs to go.

Agreed.

btw I like the signature, it's good to see other common sense republicans here.

Why thankyou. I, like you and many others, are pragmatic-minded conservatives and tired of the hypocrisy of both parties and the extreme wings of both parties, though I almost always vote Republican. What part of Florida are you in?

St. Petersburg, home of the Charlie Crist campaign HQ might I add. haha

I'm all over the map right now, but soon moving to Orlando. From Fort Lauderdale though, lived in Memphis tennessee for a while.

[Nhoj]

Well the libertarian getting twelve % seems pretty unlikely, I dont have a hard time believing that Etheridge made a race that would have probably been safe for him into a competitive race.

[cinyc]

Civitas' own polling has a Republican lean, IIRC.   They are the anti-PPP in NC.  I have no reason to think SUSA is biased one way or the other, though.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Actions like this cannot be tolerated, no matter what party. He needs to go.

Agreed.

btw I like the signature, it's good to see other common sense republicans here.

Why thankyou. I, like you and many others, are pragmatic-minded conservatives and tired of the hypocrisy of both parties and the extreme wings of both parties, though I almost always vote Republican. What part of Florida are you in?

There is nothing wrong with pragmatism but I do take issue with arrogant selfish scumbags who hide behind either the party or their pragmatism to gain advancement. I will take a Simmons or a Campbell anyday but I have had my fill of the Chafee's, Specter's and Crist's of the world.


This is not surprising. I live in the County that holds this district together, Johnston and its solidly Repubican. Its the wheel hub if you will. Bush got 67% and McCain got 63% here. The neigboring counties like Harnett are also heavily Republican as well. The only thing that keeps this district from being solidly Republican is that the NC Legislature shoved the most Democratic parts of Raleigh into it. Without that, Obama never would have gotten within 10% of winnin this district. All it needed was a kick in the pants (or rather a grabbing of the neck ) to make people realize just who and what kind of filfth their congressman is.

[Meeker]

He'll still win. I'm not worried.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

He'll still win. I'm not worried.

An incumbent congressmen below 50% is vulnerable, a congressmen below 40% who served as long as Etheridge has....

[JohnnyLongtorso]

That Etheridge is hurting in a poll taken right after this event has been in the news is not exactly surprising. It remains to be seen whether his opponent is credible enough to parlay her infusion of money into a worthwhile campaign.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

That Etheridge is hurting in a poll taken right after this event has been in the news is not exactly surprising. It remains to be seen whether his opponent is credible enough to parlay her infusion of money into a worthwhile campaign.

Yes, that will need to be seen. But Etheridge was hurting as it was from his votes for Cap-n-Trade and HRC, the problem was Ellmers couldn't get traction on that alone and there was no way the NRCC or the national pundits was going to give her any consideration, untill now. Now she can exploit those votes in an area where they are wholly unpopular and wrap it up in an umbrella of arrogance and elitism, which Etheridge just confirmed with his groper nasties.

[Meeker]

He'll still win. I'm not worried.

An incumbent congressmen below 50% is vulnerable, a congressmen below 40% who served as long as Etheridge has....

This is not a serious poll.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

He'll still win. I'm not worried.

An incumbent congressmen below 50% is vulnerable, a congressmen below 40% who served as long as Etheridge has....

This is not a serious poll.

Its a SurveyUSA poll.

And Libertarians often perform well in polling in NC but decline as election day approaches.

[Shilly]

Well, remember how vulnerable Joe Wilson was so many months back.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Well, remember how vulnerable Joe Wilson was so many months back.

Yelling "You Lie" to a President which a plurality of his district probably beleives to be be lying or is very strongly disapproved of is not the same as choking some random kid asking a political question.

[Meeker]

He'll still win. I'm not worried.

An incumbent congressmen below 50% is vulnerable, a congressmen below 40% who served as long as Etheridge has....

This is not a serious poll.

Its a SurveyUSA poll.

And Libertarians often perform well in polling in NC but decline as election day approaches.

I don't care who did it. No poll taken so close to an incident like this should be taken seriously.

If he's still polling this low in three months then I'll take it seriously.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

He'll still win. I'm not worried.

An incumbent congressmen below 50% is vulnerable, a congressmen below 40% who served as long as Etheridge has....

This is not a serious poll.

Its a SurveyUSA poll.

And Libertarians often perform well in polling in NC but decline as election day approaches.

I don't care who did it. No poll taken so close to an incident like this should be taken seriously.

If he's still polling this low in three months then I'll take it seriously.

Really, thats not the point. The point is a congressmen who has made several unpopular votes is now stuggling in the polls (even if not this low in the future) because of his actions and also aided the image of elitist arrogance which many of come to view him with. It also destroys the old adage of incumbents, "Washington is full of scumbags but I trust my guy". He doesn't have that working for him anymore.

[fezzyfestoon]

Even fewer people will care about this come election time than do now.  Honestly, no one gives two shits about their Representative.  If he doesn't get reelected, it won't be because of this or anything anyone says or does not on national news on the day of the election.

[Meeker]

He'll still win. I'm not worried.

An incumbent congressmen below 50% is vulnerable, a congressmen below 40% who served as long as Etheridge has....

This is not a serious poll.

Its a SurveyUSA poll.

And Libertarians often perform well in polling in NC but decline as election day approaches.

I don't care who did it. No poll taken so close to an incident like this should be taken seriously.

If he's still polling this low in three months then I'll take it seriously.

Really, thats not the point. The point is a congressmen who has made several unpopular votes is now stuggling in the polls (even if not this low in the future) because of his actions and also aided the image of elitist arrogance which many of come to view him with. It also destroys the old adage of incumbents, "Washington is full of scumbags but I trust my guy". He doesn't have that working for him anymore.

Yeah, you're completely misreading this poll. Whatevs.

[Shilly]

Well, remember how vulnerable Joe Wilson was so many months back.

Yelling "You Lie" to a President which a plurality of his district probably beleives to be be lying or is very strongly disapproved of is not the same as choking some random kid asking a political question.

I was specifically referencing this poll tken almost immediately after the "you lie" incident, which coincidentally showed Wilson losing by the exact same margin as Etheridge is now. I doubt many people today would consider the former's reelection in doubt. we shouldn't read much into a scandal-triggered snap poll, especially one five months before the election.

Secondarily, the same poll seems to contradict your assertions that most voters in Wilson's district agreed with their congressman, or that president Obama was particularly unpopular in SC-02 at the time. But I do agree with you that Etheridge is more vulnerable that Wilson ever was, it has more to do with the general political climate this year than anything else. Time will tell if Etheridge can recover.

[War on Want]

This is the bottom for Etheridge. In a few months no one is going to be talking about this race and his numbers should be improving. If he's only down by one after an extremely negative event, he should win quite comfortably in November.

Is Ellmers a member of the Young Guns? Will the GOP throw cash monies into this race?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Ellmers seems kind of crazy from her site. Not really the type of Republican who runs well in a district designed as this one, especially as people forget about everything now in five months.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

He'll still win. I'm not worried.

An incumbent congressmen below 50% is vulnerable, a congressmen below 40% who served as long as Etheridge has....

This is not a serious poll.

Its a SurveyUSA poll.

And Libertarians often perform well in polling in NC but decline as election day approaches.

I don't care who did it. No poll taken so close to an incident like this should be taken seriously.

If he's still polling this low in three months then I'll take it seriously.

Really, thats not the point. The point is a congressmen who has made several unpopular votes is now stuggling in the polls (even if not this low in the future) because of his actions and also aided the image of elitist arrogance which many of come to view him with. It also destroys the old adage of incumbents, "Washington is full of scumbags but I trust my guy". He doesn't have that working for him anymore.

Yeah, you're completely misreading this poll. Whatevs.

No I am not. You are. I said clearly we have to see just how much money Ellmers is raising after this event and whether she can use it as an opening to exploit his votes on HRC, Cap-N-Trade etc that this district strongly opposes. Of course you probably didn't bother to read my post when I wrote that.