President Obama has a 1-point lead in a new poll of North Carolina, 49 percent to Republican nominee Mitt Romney’s 48 percent in a survey from Democratic-leaning and in-state firm Public Policy Polling (PPP). “North Carolina’s been a swing state from the start and it looks like it will be a swing state to the end,” said Dean Debnam, President of PPP in a statement. “Neither candidate can break away here.” From their analysis:
Why no bounce [from the DNC]? North Carolina voters have simply proven to be pretty intractable. We have polled an Obama/Romney match up in the state 25 times since November of 2010. Obama and Romney have been within 3 points of each other 24 out of those 25 times. Sometimes Obama’s up by a little and sometimes Romney’s up by a little but it’s never outside the margin of error. The state of play in North Carolina this year is that each candidate has about 46% of the vote locked up, has had it locked up forever, and now they’re just fighting over a very small persuadable swath of the electorate and seeing who has the superior GOTV operation. Barring a big shift in the national picture over the final eight weeks it’s unlikely either candidate will win by more than 2-3 points, and a less than 1% difference in the final outcome like 2008 seems very plausible.
The PollTracker Average of North Carolina shows Romney with a 0.9 percent lead overall.
