Nearly half of North Carolinians oppose publicly financed campaigns.

In a survey by the Elon University Poll, 47 percent of respondents said they oppose the public financing of political campaigns, while 41 percent supported it. Nearly 11 percent did not know.

That is a much lower percentage of opposition than another recent poll by the conservative Civitas Institute which found that 73 percent opposed public campaigns.

Question wording is likely a major factor in the difference:

Civitas: The state of North Carolina currently gives millions of taxpayer dollars to candidates for some public offices to fund their campaigns. Do you think they should expand the program to more offices and give more dollars, leave it as it is or stop giving the money and let all candidates fund their own campaigns?

Elon: In general, do you [support or oppose] public financing to pay for political campaigns? (The words in brackets were rotated to minimize bias.)

A bill in the state legislature would allow cities to publicly finance campaigns. Another bill would expand a pilot program for statewide candidates.

The live poll of 620 North Carolina residents was conducted March 15-19 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

Some recent House bills:

H.B. 512: Incentives for Energy Conservation, Reps. Hugh Holliman, Pricey Harrison and Paul Luebke

H.B. 516: Increase Revenues Without Raising Taxes, Rep. Paul Stam

H.B. 518: Lottery Name Changed, Reps. John Blust, Thom Tillis, Ruth Samuelson and Darrell McCormick

H.B. 539: Merge Smart Start/More at Four, Reps. Ray Rapp, Rick Glazier, Bob England and Marvin Lucas

H.B. 586: Expand Voter-Owned Elections, Reps. Glazier, Deborah Ross, Rapp and Grier Martin