New York Times Upshot/ Siena College North Carolina Poll:
Clinton Opens Up 7 Point Lead over Trump, 46 – 39%
Ross 47%, Burr 46% Tightens; Cooper by 6 Points over McCrory
Loudonville, NY. Hillary Clinton now leads Donald Trump by 7 points, 46-39 percent in a three-way race for North Carolina’s key electoral votes, according to a New York Times Upshot/Siena College Research Institute poll of likely North Carolina voters released today. One month ago, Trump and Clinton were tied 41-41 percent in North Carolina. The race between Republican Senator Richard Burr and Democratic challenger, Deborah Ross has tightened from Ross leading 46-42 percent to Burr trailing by a single point, 47-46 percent. In the race for Governor, Democrat Attorney General Roy Cooper continues to lead Republican incumbent Pat McCrory 51-45 percent tightening from 50-42 percent a month ago.
“With just two weeks left, Trump has fallen seven points behind Clinton in a three-way race in which Gary Johnson garners eight percent of the vote while Republicans Burr and McCrory have edged closer since our September poll,” said Siena College Poll Director Don Levy. “Trump’s lead among men is six points, down from nine, and has not kept pace with Clinton’s 17 point lead among women, up from nine points last month.”
“Both major candidates continue to have net negative favorability ratings, Clinton negative eight, improved from negative 11 while Trump fell to negative 25 from negative 19,” said Levy. “And many voters told us that they will be very upset if they wake up on November 9th and the candidate that they oppose is President. Of those not supporting Clinton, 60 percent would be very upset if she wins while among those not supporting Trump, 66 percent would be very upset should he win.”
Voting has already begun in North Carolina. Despite Clinton’s lead, this race will still come down to turnout in the Tar Heel State. Democrats hold a registration advantage, but with over a third describing themselves as independent, North Carolina’s electoral votes as well as the races for U.S. Senate and Governor, could be decided by the final campaigning days and by a few votes per precinct.
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This New York Times Upshot/Siena College survey was conducted October 20-23, 2016 by telephone calls to 792 likely voters. Calls were made to a stratified weighted sample of voters from the L-2 Voter list via both land and cell phones. A likely-to-vote probability was computed for each respondent based on both their stated likelihood to vote as well as by virtue of the imputation of a turnout probability score based on past voting behavior applied to their specific voting history. This probability to vote was applied as a weight along with a weight that considered party registration, age, region, gender and race. This poll has a margin of error of +/- 3.5 percentage points. The Siena College Research Institute, directed by Donald Levy, Ph.D., conducts political, economic, social and cultural research primarily in NYS. SRI, an independent, non-partisan research institute, subscribes to the American Association of Public Opinion Research Code of Professional Ethics and Practices. For more information, please call Don Levy at 518-783-2901. Survey cross-tabulations and frequencies can be found at: www.Siena.edu/SRI/SNY. This collaboration between New York Times Upshot and the Siena College Research Institute is dedicated to transparency and welcomes any requests for data as well as discussion of methodology.
