Notebook: A money and polling breakdown of the May 8 primary contests

UPDATED: With Tuesday's primary election days away, here's a horse-race primer breaking down the first-quarter contributions and recent survey results from Public Policy Polling, a liberal-leaning firm, and the Civitas Institute, a conservative group. (See full list by clicking Read More.)

First, a few observations: Public Policy Polling and Civitas reach pretty similar polling results, despite different political leanings, at least on horse-race surveys. The exceptions: the Democratic labor commissioner race and the Republican lieutenant governor's race.

The money leader in the each contest is winning except in the Democratic lieutenant governor's race (caveat, SEANC is essentially funding Linda Coleman's campaign) and the GOP primaries for state treasurer and secretary of state. And the down ballot races include huge (50 percent in most cases) portions of undecided voters. Expect runoffs in many of these races with crowded fields.

In the Democratic primary for governor:

Walter Dalton: $650,000 PPP: 36 percent Civitas: 32 percent

Bob Etheridge: $330,000 PPP: 26 percent Civitas: 27 percent

Bill Faison: $140,000 PPP: 5 percent Civitas: 4 percent

In the Republican primary for governor:

Pat McCrory: $1.7 million PPP: 66 percent Civitas: 72 percent

Paul Wright: $8,000 PPP: 2 percent Civitas: 3 percent

Jim Mahan:  $5,000 PPP: 2 percent Civitas: 3 percent

In the Republican primary for lieutenant governor:

Dale Folwell: $342,000 PPP: 20 percent Civitas: 13 percent

Dan Forest: $92,000 PPP: 15 percent Civitas: 16 percent

Tony Gurley: $164,000 PPP: 11 percent Civitas: 13 percent

Grey Millis: $147,000 PPP: 10 percent Civitas: 9 percent

Arthur Jason Rich:  $0 PPP: 3 percent Civitas: 3 percent

In the Democratic primary for lieutenant governor:

Linda Coleman:  $35,000 PPP: 39 percent Civitas: 41 percent

Eric Mansfield:  $231,000 PPP: 18 percent Civitas: 16 percent

In the Republican primary for state auditor:

Greg Dority:  $8,000 PPP: 18 percent Civitas: 17 percent

Debra Goldman:  $2,000 PPP: 16 percent Civitas: 15 percent

Fern Shubert:  $7,000 PPP: 9 percent Civitas: 10 percent

Rudy Wright:  $6,000 PPP: 3 percent Civitas: 6 percent

Joseph Hank  DeBragga:  $0 PPP: 3 percent Civitas: 2 percent

In the Republican primary for secretary of state:

Kenn Gardner:  $11,000 PPP: 20 percent Civitas: 18 percent

Mike Beitler:  $4,000 PPP: 7 percent Civitas: 8 percent

A.J. Dauod :  $18,000 PPP: 9 percent Civitas: 10 percent

Ed Goodwin:  $43,000 PPP: 11 percent Civitas: 13 percent

In the Republican primary for state superintendent:

John Tedesco:  $8,000 PPP: 16 percent Civitas: 21 percent

Richard Alexander:  $2,000 PPP: 13 percent Civitas: 10 percent

Mark Crawford:  $4,000 PPP: 8 percent Civitas: 9 percent

David Scholl:  $5,000 PPP: 6 percent Civitas: 8 percent

Ray Martin:  $6,000 PPP: 5 percent Civitas: 5 percent

In the Democratic primary for labor commissioner:

Marlowe Foster: $28,000 PPP: 12 percent Civitas: 19 percent

Ty Richardson:  $0 PPP: 20 percent Civitas: 16 percent

John C. Brooks:  $3,000 PPP: 26 percent Civitas: 17 percent

In the Republican primary for insurance commissioner:

Richard Morgan:  $51,000 PPP: 25 percent Civitas: 20 percent

Mike Causey:  $12,000 PPP: 12 percent Civitas: 12 percent

James McCall:  $0 PPP: 12 percent Civitas: 16 percent

In the Democratic primary for state treasurer:

Janet Cowell: $138,000 PPP: 50 percent Civitas: 46 percent

Ron Elmer: $5,000 PPP: 11 percent Civitas: 14 percent

In the Republican primary for state treasurer:

Frank Roche: $10,000 PPP: 17 percent Civitas: 19 percent

Steve Royal: $2,000 PPP: 27 percent Civitas: 31 percent

In the Republican primary for agriculture commissioner:

Steve Troxler: $153,000 PPP: 48 percent Civitas: 47 percent

Bill McManus: $0 PPP: 17 percent Civitas: 18 percent

In the Democratic primary for agriculture commissioner:

Scott Bryant: $7,000 PPP: 20 percent 

Walter Smith: $6,000 PPP: 17 percent 

Notes: The campaign finance figures represent first-quarter contributions (including loans) through April 20, rounded to nearest $1,000. The Civitas poll margin of error is plus-or-minus 4.9 percent. The PPP margin of error is between 4-5 percent. Both are robo-polls. A previous version of this post was incorrect on that point.