This is a Democratic state. The political landscape here is far too dynamic for anyone to declare us a lost cause, so I am not sure how it is you're able to do so now. Here are some poll numbers:
Elon University
4/11-14/11; 630 adults, 4% margin of error
Mode: Live telephone interviews
Elon release
North Carolina
Job Approval / Disapproval
Pres. Obama: 48 / 45
Gov. Perdue: 39 / 52
Sen. Burr: 42 / 27
Sen. Hagan: 44 / 34
Note that the president's approval rating is basically 50/50, before the death of Osama bin Laden. Note that more North Carolinian approve of him than we do of our Democratic governor, and that many of the folks who disapprove of Perdue may be doing so because she's not progressive enough.
In a more recent poll, a post bin Laden death poll, out by Public Policy Polling of Raleigh, the president's numbers are 49% approve 43% disapprove.
Here's the link:
http://publicpolicypolling.blogspot.com/2011/05/obama-gets-bounce-but-no-boost-for.htmlAnd a quote:
"More voters may like Obama for the moment, but there aren't more planning to support him next year. Last month Obama led the Huckabee/Romney/Palin/Gingrich quartet by an average of 10.75 points. This month Obama leads those same four candidate by an average of...10.75 points. There's been no improvement in his reelect numbers whatsoever since the bin Laden death and if there hasn't been in the week after the killing it doesn't seem likely there will be 18 months after the killing either. What Obama's approval bounce appears to be is an increase in the percentage of people who say they like him, but still won't vote for him. They appreciate him taking out bin Laden but that's not going to outweigh everything he's done that they don't like over the course of the last 27 months.
Obama hasn't received a big increase in his reelection margins, but he is still in a healthy position against his potential Republican opponents. He's up 5 points on Mitt Romney at 47-42, numbers basically identical to Obama's 47-41 lead last month. The next best Republican is Mike Huckabee who trails 49-42, a shade worse than his 48-43 deficit in April. Obama's 52-38 lead over Newt Gingrich is exactly identical to where that match up was on the last poll. And Obama's up 17 on Sarah Palin at 54-37 and 18 on Donald Trump at 53-35."
So his poll numbers are merely OK in NC, but his numbers against any of the potential Republican alternatives in NC look much better. He beats the snot out of the GOP alternatives:
"Huckabee's favorability is 33/41 and that makes him the most 'popular.' After that it's Romney at 32/41, Gingrich at 29/53, Palin at 33/60, and Trump at 24/65. As long as the GOP field continues to have this little appeal to voters Obama can afford to not be all that popular."
The only reason his overall numbers are so low in the state are that the NC Republicans really, really hate Obama. For some reason.
Also, please note that NC is not just full of southerners anymore. Our biggest source of inmigration is New York, and many of those folks are also Democrats. Also, many of the children of foreign national Hispanics who began arriving in NC about 20 years ago are now going to be able to vote, and we're here to try to get them out to vote for the president: as young, non-Cuban Hispanics, they should add to the president's margin.
I live in Durham, the most solidly Democratic large town in NC. We achieved 76.95% turnout in 2008, up from 73.13% in 2004, 53.29% in 2000, and 60.2% in 1996. Why have the numbers spiked in the last two election cycles? Activism. He have a group of dedicated active Democrats who will do whatever it takes in the months ahead-no, strike that, we have never really stopped.
Here are some fun facts from wikipedia:
"John McCain raised a total of $2,888,922 in the state. Barack Obama raised $8,569,866."
"Obama, however, did not take the traditional Democratic path to victory. Instead, his main margins came from the cities, where he did particularly well throughout the country. While Obama only won 35 of North Carolina's 100 counties, these counties contained more than half of the state's population.
Obama's victory margin came largely by running up huge majorities in the I-85 Corridor, a developing megalopolis which is home to more than two-thirds of the state's population and casts almost 70 percent of the state's vote. The state's five largest counties--Mecklenburg (home to Charlotte) Wake (home to Raleigh), Guilford (home to Greensboro), Forsyth (home to Winston-Salem) and Durham (home to Durham)--are all located in this area, and Obama swept them all by 11 percentage points or more."
"Thus, Obama did not rely on the traditional Democratic base but rather a new coalition of city voters to win North Carolina. Obama would have lost the state by a comfortable margin without the state's five largest counties; instead, he barely pulled off a victory by creating a unique coalition of voters, particularly among highly affluent and educated migrants from the Northeast who traditionally tend to vote Democratic, as well as among African Americans and college students, the two voting blocs that overwhelmingly supported him during the course of the 2008 Democratic presidential primary."
"According to exit polls over 95% of African Americans cast ballots for Obama. This played a critical role in North Carolina, as 95% of the state's registered African American voters turned out, with Obama carrying an unprecedented 100% of African-American females and African Americans age 18 to 29, according to exit polling. Comparatively, the turnout statewide was only 69%."
Obama won NC by 14,177 votes. If you want to know how, and how he will win it again, consider the 76.95% turnout in Durham, the largest majority minority city in the state. It is not a tough sell to get African American voters to vote for the first black president in Jesse Helms' home state. You don't have to explain anything to anyone--OK, maybe some technical things regarding voting, and you have to make sure folks are registered, but it is not a tough sell. We have early voting, and we know how to get people to the polls.
We have a plan: win the big cities, win Down East, win the state. I could go on all day about how we turned NC blue, and how it will go for the President again. Much of the credit goes to volunteers, and to the common sense of our Tarheel voters, but credit should also go to the Obama campaign itself. The Kerry-Edwards campaign gave up on NC waaay too early in 2004: the Obama campaign won NC in the primary, and knew they could win in the general--having the professional resources we did not have in 2004 was very helpful, though, when you have an election decided by 14k votes out of over 4 million cast, everything is decisive.
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