Lawson trumpets a fraction

B.J. Lawson, Republican candidate for the congressional seat currently held by U.S. Rep. David Price, called reporters to a news conference Tuesday to celebrate four-tenths.

That's the lead, four-tenths of a percentage point, that Lawson says he has in a poll his campaign commissioned in August. Lawson didn't produce the poll for reporters at his Raleigh news conference. (Dome has asked for a copy. We'll let you know when we get one.)

But the headline of that poll, which Lawson's campaign trumpeted as "a major campaign update that will change the dynamics of the race and the interest in North Carolina congressional politics," is that Lawson had 46.5 percent to Price's 46.1 percent.

"We are pulling slightly ahead of Mr. Price," Lawson said to applause of his supporters.

Readers of Dome know that we rarely report on internal polling unless we have a chance to evaluate the poll ourselves. We are breaking our rule here since Lawson's campaign set the standard so impossibly high for results that are in the best interpretation, a statistical dead heat. Until we have a chance to review the poll, it's hard to say much about the data.

Lawson said that such a result against an incumbent in a largely Democratic district shows "a deep degree of satisfaction" among voters.

UPDATE: Lawson's campaign sent a summary of the poll. Action Solutions asked 1,038 registered voters in the 4th District on Aug. 11 if they preferred "Democrat David Price" or "Republican William B.J. Lawson."

The margin of error was 3 percentage points.