A few days ago, I brought you a poll of North Carolina voters on their presidential preferences done by Elon University. Now another poll has been released about North Carolina preferences It is the Public Policy Polling survey -- done between September 24th and 27th of a random sample of 605 Democratic voters (with a margin of error of 4 points), and 576 Republican voters (with a margin of error of 4.1 points).
This poll shows Hillary Clinton with only a 7 point lead -- but that lead is over Joe Biden (who is not even a candidate). Her lead over Bernie Sanders was 20 points -- and when Biden is not included in the choices, that lead of Clinton over Sanders jumps to 27.8 points. Sanders is just having trouble getting any traction in North Carolina -- getting only 17% support among Democrats, and only 23% support without Biden being considered.
This could always change after the first Democratic debate (which is about two weeks away), but I doubt it will. Both Clinton and Sanders are excellent debaters, and I doubt either will score a huge victory.
On the Republican side, there are four candidates in double figures in North Carolina -- Donald Trump with 26%, Ben Carson with 21%, Carly Fiorina with 12%, and Marco Rubio with 10%. The really amazing thing, for me, is how far Jeb Bush has fallen. He has only 5% support, which puts him in seventh place -- behind Ted Cruz with 9% and Mike Huckabee with 6%. Bush is looking more and more like an "also ran".
