In our poll this month, we asked voters if Gov. Bev Perdue nicknaming herself as the “Jobs Governor” was an appropriate title for the Governor given her first year in office. Only 12% of voters said yes. 68 percent said no.
As for her favorability rating this month it comes in at a -5 (43% unfavorable, 38% favorable), about the same as it was in December (-5).
Perdue’s numbers have rebounded from her lowest points this summer when the rating was -14. This is mainly through her improved standing among Republicans where her unfavorables have fallen from a high of 72% in October to 56% now. Perdue is now back up at 50% favorable with members of her own party for the first time since April 2009.
NC voters’ opinion of Pres. Barack Obama inched up in January and now is at 52% favorable, 37% unfavorable or a +15 spread, the widest its been since the beginning of the health care debate last summer.
Obama’s favorability rating basically fell off a cliff once the health care reform measure was launched last July bottoming out at a +3 in October and has been slowly climbing back off those lows. While his policies and proposals are widely opposed by NC voters, he still remains personally likable. But NC voters are separating their warm and fuzzy feelings for Obama the man and the icy cold feelings for his policies.
If you wanted to increase travel efficiency between Raleigh and Charlotte, what is the better use of $520 million?
1. Upgrade a rail line (but not fully) that serves a few hundred people per day that could possibly grow to a couple of thousand people per day.
2. Replace the Yadkin River Bridge ($300M) and have $220 million left over to widen I-85 in Cabarrus, Rowan and Davidson Counties from 2 lanes to 4 which in some sections has a daily traffic count of 110,000 cars per day and is consistently the cause of traffic jams and accidents. (And as all you greenies out there know, traffic congestion leads to global warmingglobal cooling climate change.)
If you missed the monthly poll luncheon yesterday at the Clarion, you missed out on probably the most interesting poll finding we’ve had in our nearly 5 years of polling.
We asked voters if they had a favorable or unfavorable opinion of our good friend, Dallas Woodhouse:
And interestingly enough, Dallas is actually more popular among Democrats than he is among Republicans.
In our poll this month, we asked Democratic and Unaffiliated voters if they had a preference in the Democratic Primary for the US Senate nomination, and by and large they do not have a preference yet. 75 percent of voters were undecided on any of the three announced candidates.
I do have to point out, that in fairness, this is a poll of likely general election voters, not necessarily Democratic primary voters. But at this stage, none of the candidates have made a splash.
It is somewhat surprising too how low Cunningham is in the poll given how much attention was given to his wooing by the national Democratic Party. I guess it just goes to show how little average voters pay attention to things like that.
Ultimately, this race will probably be decided by whichever candidate can raise enough money to get on TV the earliest and the heaviest. It’s wide open now, but whoever puts the first TV ad up will probably jump out to a big lead.
Full press release here. Full crosstabs and the data here.
North Carolina voters are fairly evenly split on privatizing the ABC system versus keeping it state-run according to our poll for January.
47% say keep the government in charge.
44% say let private businesses run it.
This issue presents a bit of a double-edged sword for many rural legislators, especially Republicans. While just about everyone agrees that the system needs reform (see Performance Evaluation Division report here), there is a danger of alienating the conservative religious voters who do not want widespread availability of hard liquor.
Yes, NC is a changing state, but there are still many elements of the old Bible Belt still alive as this issue shows. Just take a look at the breakdown by religion:
Baptists say keep ABC system by a 57-35 margin. But Catholics favor privatization by a 66-23 margin.
Full press release here. Crosstabs and other fun data here.
After seeing our article from Jan. 12 detailing how Basnight Construction received a subcontract job to build a portion of the $25 million fishing pier in Sen. Marc Basnight’s district, news reporters caught up with him yesterday to ask him about his involvement.
Sen. Basnight’s response according to the N&O was that he resigned from Basnight Construction in August 2009 once he was told that Basnight Construction “plan(ned) to bid on the work.”
The problem is, by that time, Basnight Construction had not only planned to bid, but had actually placed a bid and been awarded a subcontract to do work. According to documents given to us by the NC Division of Aquariums, Basnight Construction was awarded a subcontract to do work pending funding for the project being in place in December 2008 — a full 9 months prior to what Basnight told the N&O.
In between December 2008 and August 2009, Sen. Basnight pushed a bill through the General Assembly (HB 628) that authorized the funding for the pier project in April 2009.
So something in the Senator’s story isn’t holding up. Here’s the timeline spelled out:
November 2008 – Basnight Construction listed as an interested subcontractor for work on the pier project
December 4, 2008 – Basnight Construction awarded subcontract for pier pending the project being funded and Clancy & Theys receiving general contract
April 14, 2009 – HB 628 (which authorizes and funds the pier project) is given final passage by the NC Senate and signed by Gov. Perdue that same day
April 15, 2009 – Contract is awarded to Clancy & Theys for $22 million to construct N.C. Aquarium’s Jennette’s Pier in Nags Head
August 5, 2009 – Sen. Marc Basnight submits letter of resignation from Board of Basnight Construction and transfers the 2,800 shares of the company he owns to his cousin Jimmy Basnight
The NC chapter of the NAACP has been quite vocal in its support of continuing the Wake County Public Schools policy of busing children across the county in order to achieve “diversity.” They have even gone so far as to introduce race-baiting terms like “resegregation” to the debate and more or less call opponents of diversity racists for wanting to change it.
However, a poll we conducted in November shows that the position supported by the NAACP is opposed by blacks in Wake County.
When asked if they supported the current policy of assigning students to schools to achieve diversity instead of sending students to schools closest to their home, 59.2% of black voters said they opposed the diversity policy.
That’s right, nearly 60% of blacks in Wake County would rather send their child to the school closest to them. Apparently there is a broad disconnect between the NAACP leadership and the parents who actually have children in schools. So instead of tossing around racist terms like its 1962, maybe the NAACP should stand with black parents who are putting their children on buses before the sun comes up to send them across the county to achieve little in the way of educational gain.
The current system is failing low income students of all races. Why not give something new and different a try before calling everyone a racist?
Great op-ed in the Kinston Free Press today on how the seeming best intentions of the nanny-staters only take away individual rights:
We think that most people in North Carolina know that and are capable of making their own decisions on which restaurants or bars to frequent.
Unfortunately, our legislators thought that they knew better. They took the authority to make such decisions out of the hands of business owners and their customers.
As we argued for much of the past two years on this issue, this is fundamentally about the rights of individuals and businesses to engage in free choice. Freedom to frequent or not frequent the establishments that best fit what the individual chooses and the market, not government, will decide the winners and losers.
Isn’t it amazing that in this day in age where consumers are opting for more and more choices in their lives that they just seemingly sit back and accept government applying a one-size-fits-all solution to problems. Hmm… Obamacare anyone?
