Tom Jensen

Polls peg Obama approval in mid-40s

bniolet — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 14:51:21 -0400

President Barack Obama's approval is in the mid-40s, two new polls show.

The Democratic firm Public Policy Polling found a 45 percent approval rating and the conservative-leaning Civitas Institute pulled a 44 percent rating.

"North Carolina is one of the few states where Obama's standing has declined enough that he probably wouldn't win it again if the election was held today," PPP's Tom Jensen notes.

"It looks like the honeymoon is definitely ending for President Obama, said Francis De Luca, executive director of the Civitas Institute.

Gender yields no extra credit

bniolet — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 11:32:38 -0400

Gov. Beverly Perdue has no special status among the state's female voters.

After a News & Observer story examined the relative few women serving high positions within Perdue's administration, Public Policy Polling's Tom Jensen noted that Perdue didn't get extra support from Republican or independent women in her election.

The Democratic firm looked at exit polls to determine that she earned a smaller percentage of the female vote than President Barack Obama and Sen. Kay Hagan.

Perdue, despite her status as the state's first female Governor, has no unique appeal to women voters. She got few, if any, extra votes last fall from Republicans or independent women who wanted a woman in that office. Folks who would normally have voted Republican still did. And women aren't cutting Perdue any slack for the issues she's had during her first eight months as Governor, evaluating her more or less the same way men are.

Senator Who?

bkrueger — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 15:05:12 -0400

North Carolina voters apparently would have difficulty picking their two senators in Washington out of a line-up.

That's the conclusion of the folks over at Public Policy Polling, who say that their polling in 14 different states indicates that North Carolina voters are less familiar with their senators than voters in other states.

Their basis for that is approval polling they have done of the U.S. senators in 14 states. In North Carolina, an average of 33 percent said they had "no opinion" when asked what they thought of how Sens. Richard Burr, a Winton-Salem Republican, and Kay Hagan, a Greensboro Democrat, were doing.

That figure was higher than in any of the other states where PPP has polled. Delaware was a close second, with 29 percent, followed by Colorado at 27 percent and New Jersey at 25 percent.

At the other end of the spectrum were West Virginia, where only 10 percent of voters said they had no opinion on their senators, and Virginia, at 12 percent.

Tom Jensen of PPP speculates that could be due to a number of factors, including that North Carolina doesn't keep its senators around for long and that North Carolina has become such a big state that it's hard for the senators to cover so much ground.

A look behind Perdue's numbers

bkrueger — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 13:52:31 -0400

Tom Jensen of Public Policy Polling is warning about reading too much doom-and-gloom into the latest poll numbers for Gov. Beverly Perdue.

The latest numbers, provided by PPP, show that 27 percent of North Carolina voters approve of the job Perdue is doing, while 52 percent disapprove. Those numbers are only slightly better than the month before, when Perdue had a 25 percent approval rating.

Jensen acknowledges that the numbers are bad, but maybe not as bad as they first appear, particularly if you consider she's not up for re-election until 2012.

"I have no doubt she would lose if she had an election today, but a lot of things can change in that period of time," Jensen writes.

Jensen says a deeper look at the numbers reveal that a lot of North Carolina voters don't feel strongly about Perdue - either for or against her.

"That means she's not 'finished' just seven months into her term, but it also means she has a lot of work to do to gain popularity with all those folks," he writes.

Burr consultant will pay for poll

bniolet — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 16:38:52 -0400

A top consultant for U.S. Sen. Richard Burr's campaign is paying for a recent survey to avoid any problems with federal elections authorities.

Paul Shumaker has agreed to pay $1,250 for a recent survey conducted by his private polling firm because of concerns about how the Federal Election Commission might view the Burr campaign’s use of the survey data, Roll Call reports.

He said he commissioned and released the poll through his Carolina Strategy Group because he felt some Democratic groups, specifically Public Policy Polling, an automated polling firm also based in North Carolina, were painting a false picture of the current political environment in the state.

But two of the first five questions in the poll asked respondents about Burr’s Senate race. One of those questions asked respondents who they would vote for in a hypothetical matchup between Burr and one of his potential Democratic challengers, North Carolina Secretary of State Elaine Marshall.

Shumaker said he chose the polling questions and added the ballot test to the survey because "nobody pays attention to any of these things if you don’t put in the ballot test."

But Shumaker's dual roles with his company and Burr's campaign put him in a complicated position.

PPP drops hints about who is not running for Senate after the jump.

Voters unhappy with senators

bkrueger — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 14:31:55 -0400

Neither of North Carolina’s senators are in high standing with voters these days.

U.S. Sen. Richard Burr, a Republican, has a favorable rating of 39 percent and unfavorable rating of 31 percent, with 30 percent having no opinion, according to the InsiderAdvantage Poll conducted by Majority Opinion Research in Atlanta, reports Rob Christensen.

Sen. Kay Hagan, a Democrat, has a favorable rating of 39 percent and unfavorable rating of 39 percent with 22 percent having no opinion, according to the same poll.

Such low ratings for both senators is rare. Tom Jensen, a pollster with Public Policy Polling, said that of 13 states where they did polling, North Carolina and Ohio were the only ones where both senators had an approval rating of under 40 percent.

This is likely more of a problem for Burr, who faces re-election next year. Hagan doesn’t have to face voters until 2014.

The InsiderAdvantage Poll was of 894 registered voters in North Carolina. It was conducted June 22 and had a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points.

Pollster unpopular with Burr

bniolet — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 14:10:11 -0400

Sen. Richard Burr's campaign is going on the offensive against Democratic pollster Public Policy Polling, which is publishing a steady stream of polls suggesting Burr's re-election is in doubt.

Politico reports that the dispute hasn't attracted much attention from voters, but is an important fight in Burr's re-election campaign because, "more than anyone else, the Raleigh-based firm is driving the narrative that the first-term GOP senator’s reelection prospects are in jeopardy."

“What they’re doing needs to be put into a proper context. Their goal is to inject themselves into the political debate, and they need to be responsible and say, ‘Our agenda is to promote Democratic candidates,’” said Burr consultant Paul Shumaker.

The company's Tom Jensen stands by its numbers.

“We’re absolutely rooting in the race. We don’t want Richard Burr to get reelected. We wanted Obama to win last fall,” said Jensen. “But our reputation is predicated on getting it right, and we’re not going to cook the numbers just to tweak Richard Burr’s nerves. They are what they are.”

Hat tip: Gosh

Williams leads Coach K in popularity

bniolet — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 11:21:28 -0400

University of North Carolina men's basketball coach Roy Williams is more popular among state voters than Duke University basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski, according to politically irrelevant but still interesting polls conducted by Democratic polling firm Public Policy Polling.

The firm did a poll on the statewide popularity of Williams last month and found that 61 percent of voters have a favorable opinion of the coach, who led his team to a national championship earlier this year.

Perhaps to take a break from running hypothetical candidates against Sen. Richard Burr, PPP asked a similar question about Coach K. The result: 52 percent of voters have a favorable opinion. PPP's Tom Jensen also concludes that fans for each school don't hate the other side as much as you might think.

While 68% of Duke fans last month said they had a favorable opinion of Williams, only 53% of Carolina fans say they view Krzyzewski positively. Among State fans 60% had a favorable opinion of Williams, while 51% have one of Krzyzewski. And among supporters of the Demon Deacons 59% like Roy and 53% like Coach K.

Of course the numbers may just serve to make some politicians jealous.

Quick Hits

ryanteaguebeckwith — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 13:26:17 -0400

* U.S. Rep. Howard Coble received an award from the American Conservative Union; his lifetime rating is 89.21 over 24 years.

* Democratic pollster Tom Jensen thinks state Sens. John Snow or Joe Sam Queen would make good candidates for Rep. Heath Shuler's seat.

* Greensboro News-Record reporter Mark Binker says Gov. Beverly Perdue quashed a rumor that she would submit a do-over on the budget.

* Charlotte Observer columnist Jack Betts gives state schools CEO Bill Harrison props for speaking out for a tax hike for education.

Quick Hits

ryanteaguebeckwith — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 14:23:57 -0400

* Charlotte Observer columnist Jack Betts says North Carolina "has long been under-represented" in the Fourth Circuit because of partisan differences.

* Biofuels Center of North Carolina names W. Steven Burke as president, longtime political insider Norris Tolson as chairman of the board.

* N.C. Policy Watch's Adam Linker can't find a copy of State Health Plan head Jack Walker's doctoral thesis in ProQuest/UMI database.

* Democratic pollster Tom Jensen and Greensboro columnist Doug Clark agree that Rep. Heath Shuler's decision not to run for Senate is a good thing.