Raleigh, NC – The race for North Carolina’s next Governor remains a close contest according to the latest DecisionMaker poll results released today by the Civitas Institute

Among the 600 likely voters polled, Lt. Gov. Bev Perdue leads Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory 43-40. Libertarian Party candidate Michael Munger received two percent support. Fourteen percent of voters were undecided.

“We see this race continue to be within the margin of error for the poll, making it a statistical dead heat,” said Francis DeLuca, Executive Director of the Civitas Institute. “We have seen very little movement in these numbers since both candidates won their party’s nomination in May.”

McCrory maintains a huge lead in the Charlotte area (704 area code) where he leads 66-23 and a slim lead in the mountains (828 area code) 41-37. Perdue has large leads in the eastern part of the state (910 and 252 area codes) where she leads 62-27 and 50-30, respectively. Perdue also leads in the Triangle and Triad.

“It will be interesting to see which candidate will attempt to break away and begin their media campaign first. The race is so wide open, it may come down to the first candidate to begin television advertising will win,” concluded DeLuca.

Previous Civitas Poll results:
May – Perdue 43, McCrory 42
June – Perdue 43, McCrory 41, Munger 2

Click here for full results and crosstabs.

The study of 600 registered voters was conducted July 14-16 by Tel Opinion Research of Alexandria, Virginia. All respondents were part of a fully representative sample of registered voters in North Carolina. For purposes of this study, voters we interviewed had to have voted in either the 2002, 2004 or 2006 general election or were newly registered voters since 2006. The voters were interviewed using live callers.

The confidence interval associated with a sample of this size is such that: 95% of the time, results from 800 interviews (registered voters) will be within +-4.2% of the “True Values.” “True Values” refer to the results obtained if were possible to interview every person in North Carolina who had voted in either the 2002, 2004 or 2006 general elections or were newly registered voters since 2006.