Talk Elections

Roy Cooper (D) - 39%
Richard Burr (R) - 34%

Approval Ratings

Cooper: 44% approve, 23% disapprove
Burr: 32% approve, 31% disapprove

http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/PPP_Release_NC_1210.pdf

Cooper has a higher combined approve/disapprove than Burr?  why?

Probably a result of the generic D vs. generic R post-election love and high amounts of undecideds.

nice. looks like another pick-up for us.

Chickens, eggs, hatching.  polls two years out mean nothing.

Well, this certainly isn't bad news, at least.

Useless poll.

true, but 34% is bad news for an incumbent regardless.

While is not surprising to see Cooper in the lead considering his popularity I do have some doubts. It dosen't say what they expect Turnout to be among Young voters and AA's. Considering that in GA and both LA seats we saw a significantly decreased AA and Young voter Turnout b/c Obama wasn;t on the ticket. That might continue or OBama and his team might find away to get them out w/o Obama on the ticket. Still in a state largely determined by that change in voter compostion I think that all polls should include that data so we can have a better comparison.

Waaaaaaaaaaaay too premature.

Get back to me in 2009 with polls in this race. For the record, I'm glad I'll intern with Burr in 2010 instead of the summer of 2011. I love the guy and I'd hate to see him lose. But the environment will most likely favor the GOP. The Democrats won't pickup seats forever.

No they will not, but with the change NC Burr will have a hard time winning.

Burr's seat is cursed.  Obama would have to be pretty unpopular for Burr to win.

In all seriousness, no polls at this time should be taken even remotely seriously.  Let's wait until the middle of 2009, at least, before we start having polls.

He will have a hard time, but NC went Democrat this year because everything fell perfectly for them. I doubt 2010 will have the same elements that this year had, unless the economy has rebounded tremendously and Obama has a fantastic start to his term. It's a cursed seat, but Burr is a much better candidate than Liddy Dole ever was, and is actually looked upon more favorably than Dole. But as I said, I am glad I'm interning with Mr. Burr in 2010 and not 2011, because it could flip. I just hope it doesn't.

I wouldn't say that. It isn't like Burr has no shot at winning reelection. Obama will need to be wildly popular for the Democrats to gain even more seats in 2010. They already have huge majorities now, and it won't stay that way forever.

Duke, not to put you down or anything, but you were saying the same thing about Dole vs Hagan up until the last month before the election.

Everything changed when we had the financial meltdown. If I had known that was going to happen, I would've said NC was winnable. My prediction was correct. I always said NC would be 6-8% more GOP than the national average. I was correct on that mark. It was about 7% more GOP than the average. Also, Hagan's rise had more to do with Dole's horrendously run campaign + the financial meltdown + her idiotic attack ad on Hagan's religious views.

But without an unforeseeable crisis occurring, I still stand by my prediction. You got lucky and everything fell into place for NC to go Democrat. It's not like you just knew that all these events would happen. It's not like you were a prophet. NC didn't trend as hard left as you said it was. Obama just won nationally by enough that it flipped by 0.5% or so. Before the crisis, McCain was leading nationally and would've won NC easily. Dole may have as well.

Of course Burr has a chance to lose, but saying he has no chance at winning is reckless. Trends do not always continue, and the Democrats won't keep picking up seats unless they do a flawless job running the country. I highly doubt they or anyone else will in the next year or so. Our problems are just too big to fix that quickly.

Like I said, Duke, I was kidding.  I'm giving Burr the edge now, because of what I expect 2010 to be, but he can't get complacent.

NC trended 4% from 2004 and trended 3% from 2000 to 2004, or the other way around.

Yes. I noted it would trend 3-4% between 2004-2008 in my posts from earlier this year. Your claim was that I was wrong about NC, which I was until the financial meltdown when I changed my tone. What I said was NC would still be 6-8% more GOP than average this time, and it was.

Duke Hagan won in NC because she was liked better by the people then Dole was. When I said you were wrong about NC I was talking mostly about the Gov and Senate race.

No, Hagan won because Dole ran an incompetent campaign and because there were significant Obama coattails.  She is hardly a political figure, and it is hard to present an argument that says otherwise.

I said Hagan would win because of Obama's coattail, but she was more like by NC then Dole is. I mean just look at Dole's app. rates.

Duh, but it's mostly about Hagan being super lucky than being "liked".

No Dole came across as a stuck up old bag, while Hagan came across as "the avg person".

This. Dole ran a terrible campaign and her support was soft to begin with. That being said, Obama's coattails pulled her through in a big way in western North Carolina which were because of the financial crisis. If that didn't happen, NC would've been a Republican state and Dole probably wins reelection. She panicked when she fell behind and began attacking Hagan for the most ridiculous things.

Hagan pulled ahead of Dole way before the financial crisis.

Dole was running a terrible campaign before the financial crisis. That only helped Hagan remain ahead. I still don't believe she would have won if McCain had carried NC by a comfortable margin (53-46), but this isn't worth debating. It's over.

You right it is not worth debating over. But if Obama got 46% in NC Hagan would have won. 49-48-3 Hagan.

That's fairly flawed logic, because it's unlikely that Dole would have aired her "godless" ad if she wasn't in such horrible shape in the polls.

No its not. Democratic Senate candidates always do about 3% better then the Democratic President candidate. Thrid parties always take about 2 to 3% that would make it a 49-48-3 hagan win.

Ok, if she would do 3 points better than McCain if he won 53-46, then she would still lose by 4.  Anyways, there are many other factors that made Hagan win by so much.  That includes the RNSC completely giving up on Dole in the fading days in the campaign, which resulted in a prompt campaign collapse.  Her GOTV effort was completely destroyed, as a result.  This would not have happened if the financial crisis had not happened or if McCain was in better shape.

I think it's a bit bold to say GOP GOTV efforts collapsed in North Carolina.

McCain's campaign and the RNC obviously put a lot of effort into it, although they did start a month later than Obama...

If his approval rating is above 60%, Democrats would probably pick up a good number of seats in the Senate and hold about even in the House.  If its 50%-59%, Democrats will likely gain a seat or two in the Senate and suffer high single digit losses in the House.