An attack ad linking Kay Hagan to the Godless Americans PAC boosted her instead.

The Democratic senator-elect's campaign received 3,600 contributions within 48 hours of an ad by U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole criticizing her for attending a fundraiser.

Hagan immediately used the ad as an e-mail fundraising tool.

"We got responses from people who identify themselves as atheists and every religion under the sun who found that ad offensive," said Hagan spokeswoman Colleen Flanagan, who said the campaign hadn't calculated the dollar figure raised yet.

Tom Jensen, a Democratic pollster in Raleigh, said Hagan was winning by four percentage points more than president-elect Barack Obama during early voting. After the ad aired, she won by 11 percentage points more than Obama. 

Dole said the $3 million personal loan she made her own campaign in early October was not specifically related to the ad. (Char-O) 

Tom Jensen says Beverly Perdue is blowing off Charlotte.

The Democratic pollster writes on his blog that the Democratic gubernatorial candidate appears to have made a calculated decision to abandon the Queen City in order to rack up more votes elsewhere in the state.

About two weeks ago it seems Perdue's campaign became heavily focused on the east. First she started running effective ads on Yankee trash, an issue that hits home much harder east of I-95 than it does anywhere else. Her newest set of ads attack McCrory for a Charlotte first mentality: if there was no inherent anti-Charlotte bias with voters outside the state of Mecklenburg, it seems, the Perdue campaign is trying to create one.

Jensen says that Perdue has increased her lead in its polls by about 10 percentage points in Eastern North Carolina since she went with the Charlotte strategy.

"Forsaking a point in Charlotte to pick up three in the east? Could make the difference in a close race," he writes. 

Related: Jack Betts is reminded of a famous headline: "Ford to city: Drop dead." 

Kay Hagan continues her lead in the Senate race.

According to a recent survey by Democratic firm Public Policy Polling, the Democratic Senate candidate had 49 percent, U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole had 40 percent and Libertarian Christopher Cole had five percent.

Seven percent were undecided.

Several recent polls in the past few weeks have shown Hagan ahead of Dole.

"Our polling, both public and private, has also found that Hagan is playing extremely well with the state's quickly expanding group of suburban voters," writes pollster Tom Jensen on his blog. "She may well be the standard bearer of the profile of candidate who's going to be successful statewide in 21st century North Carolina."

The automated survey of 1,202 likely voters was taken from Oct. 4-5. The margin of error is plus or minus 2.8 percentage points.

Barack Obama is going after John McCain on the radio in North Carolina.

Under the Dome readers report hearing Obama ads on country stations (WQDR 94.7 and The Rooster 106.1 in Raleigh, WSOC-FM 103.7 in Charlotte, 93.1 FM The Wolf, 104.1 WTQR in Winston-Salem and WMNC The Big Dawg in Morganton), rock stations (Mix 101.5 in Raleigh) classic R&B stations (Foxy 104.3 in Raleigh), sports radio (850 AM The Buzz in the Triangle), conservative talk radio (WPTF 680 AM in Raleigh, 101.1 FM Talk in the Triad), urban radio (K97.5 in Raleigh, Power 98 and 96.1 The Beat in Charlotte).

Readers reported hearing two ads in particular.

One features former Washington Redskin Ray Schoenke, who leads the American Hunters & Shooters Association, a Democratic-leaning gun owners group.

"Barack Obama and John McCain will both make sure we keep our guns," he says in the ad. "But what about keeping our jobs?"

Another ad describes a lavish Ferris wheel being built in Baghdad.

"John McCain wants America to keep spending $10 billion a month in Iraq when we should be rebuilding America," the narrator says.

Readers also describe an ad encouraging people to register to vote. Pollster Tom Jensen reports hearing ads attacking McCain on gender pay equity as well.

Kay Hagan has a significant lead in a new poll.

According to a recent survey by Democratic firm Public Policy Polling, the Democratic Senate candidate had 46 percent, U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole had 41 percent and Libertarian Christopher Cole had six percent.

Seven percent were undecided.

"Hagan, like Barack Obama, is benefiting from increased voter worry over the economy," writes pollster Tom Jensen on his blog. "Fifty-eight percent of North Carolina voters list it as their biggest issue, and Hagan has a 57-30 advantage with those voters."

Other recent polls have shown Dole ahead or the race tied, although not all have included Cole, the only third-party candidate who will be on the ballot.

The automated survey of 1,060 likely voters was taken Sept. 17-19. The margin of error is plus or minus three percentage points.

Public Policy Polling has some new numbers out in the governor's race, but they look pretty much like the old numbers.

Democrat Beverly Perdue continues to lead Republican Pat McCrory in the latest survey. The new numbers are 43 percent for Perdue, 38 percent for McCrory and 4 percent for Libertarian candidate Michael Munger.

PPP surveyed 904 likely voters Aug. 20-23. The margin of error was plus or minus 3.3 percentage points.

Tom Jensen of PPP says that McCrory, the longtime mayor of Charlotte, is having trouble getting traction elsewhere in the state. He says that McCrory leads 54-33 percent in the greater Charlotte area, but "trails in every other region of the state."

Republican U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole’s campaign acknowledges that outside advertising from the Democratic Senatorial Congressional Committee could be hurting their candidate.

But they are disavowing new poll numbers showing Dole now slightly behind Democratic challenger Kay Hagan, a state senator.

“I think the DSCC’s ads are definitely having an impact on the race,” said Dole spokesman Hogan Gidley. “When an outside group comes in and spends millions of dollars … it’s got to affect the race somehow.”

Public Policy Polling, a Democratic firm in Raleigh, released new numbers today showing Hagan edges Dole 42-39 among likely voters. That’s right at the margin of error of plus or minus 3.3 percentage points.

Gidley also slammed the company for its survey style of push-button polling, a method considered less reliable among some polling experts than live interviews.

“I think the poll’s a bunch of junk for many reasons,” Gidley said.

More after the jump.

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White voters have come to the polls at different rates than black voters.

While black turnout jumped by 25 to 30 percent in the last two presidential elections in North Carolina, white turnout went up by a smaller percentage.

In the 2000 election, white turnout went up by 379,000 voters, or about 19 percent, from the previous presidential election. In 2004, it went up by 412,000 voters, or about 17 percent.

Though that's smaller on a percentage basis, it's a larger number of actual voters.

That means that despite the gains in black voters, they still remain a small percentage of the voting population: 16.7 percent in 1996, 17.3 percent in 2000 and 18.6 percent in 2004.

Earlier this week, Democratic pollster Tom Jensen calculated that black voters would need to be around 23 percent of the people at the polls for Barack Obama to pull ahead of John McCain.

A big question mark remains: How many white voters will show up on Election Day?

Obama could boost black turnout by 30 percent and still fall short if white turnout goes up as well, even if it's by a much smaller percentage.

Tom Jensen won the Dome office pool for North Carolina.

The pollster for Raleigh Democratic firm Public Policy Polling may have had a bit of an advantage with all that polling data at his fingertips, but he still came an impressive seven points cumulatively of nailing the final percentages in the state primary.

Jensen predicted Obama at 56 percent, just .1 percent below his actual take, McCain at 75 percent, 1 percent too high, Perdue at 59 percent, 2.8 percent high and McCrory at 43 percent, three percent low. For good measure he also correctly predicted Walter Dalton would win the lieutenant governor's race.

Coming up right behind him is user jbrown68, who came within 9.4 percentage points and also called Dalton, and user Senate, who came within 12.4 points. He and Jensen both win spiffy N&O hats.

In all, eight of the 22 contestants correctly predicted all four top vote-getters, with most of the rest losing on the Republican gubernatorial primary. 

Congratulations to users gercohen, greenlamp, bjeversole, btchambe and raleigh585, who also did well. 

Hillary Clinton has gained some ground on Barack Obama, according to the latest survey results from Public Policy Polling.

In the previous five PPP polls, Obama has held a steady lead of at least 18 points. That lead is now down to 12 points, Tom Jensen writes on PPP's blog. 

The primary movement in the last week has been among white voters. Our last survey showed Clinton leading by only five points in the state with that group but now her margin is up to 56-35. Per usual Obama's overall lead comes from dominating the black vote, which he leads 83-9.

One piece of good news for Obama in the poll is that he has a lot more votes in the bank than Clinton. 14% of those surveyed said they had done early voting already, and with those folks Obama has a 63-31 advantage.

PPP surveyed 1,121 likely Democratic primary voters on April 26th and 27th.  The survey’s margin of error is +/- 2.9%.