Polls: N.C. voters unhappy with Perdue

The numbers are getting worse for Democratic Gov. Beverly Perdue.

A pair of polls from the left and the right show that voters are increasingly dissatisfied with Perdue, a Democrat.

Perdue's approval rating is 24 percent in the latest survey by Public Policy Polling, a Democratic polling firm. The firm says that is the lowest figure yet for Perdue, who is in her first year in office.

Likewise, the right-leaning Civitas Institute found in its poll that 29 percent of voters were dissatisfied with Perdue. The real bad news for her is that 63 percent of respondents disapproved, the first time a majority has been unhappy with the governor in the Civitas poll.

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PPP said that while it may not be surprising that Perdue's approval rating among Republicans is only 10 percent, it notes that she's not doing too well with Democrats either. More Democrats (39 percent) disapprove of the job she is doing than approve (38 percent).

The PPP findings are the result of a survey of 683 North Carolina voters between Oct. 2-4. The survey's margin of error was plus or minus 3.8 percentage points.

In the Civitas survey of 600 registered voters, 79 percent of Republicans disapproved and 47 percent of Democrats were unhappy. Perdue isn't having much success with unaffiliated voters, 70 percent of whom disapprove with her job performance.

The Civitas survey was conducted Sept. 29-30 by SurveyUSA and has a margin of error of 4 percentage points.

While Perdue has lots of time to bring her ratings back up, Civitas executive director, Francis De Luca, says the long decline of her polling numbers is an ominous sign.

"A lot of people dismiss job approval ratings this far from an election, but at some point Perdue has to see her numbers stabilize. According to these latest numbers, it appears her support continues to fall," added De Luca.

The PPP survey found that Perdue is not doing well among some groups that typically favor Democrats. The survey found that her disapproval rating among African Americans is 42 percent, and 60 percent among voters under 30.

PPP says that 47 percent of voters consider Perdue a liberal, 40 percent consider her a moderate and 13 percent say she is a conservative. But the firm says that most liberal voters do not consider Perdue a liberal.

"A lot of folks thought once the budget was done and the General Assembly went home that Bev Perdue's numbers would start to recover," Dean Debnam, president of PPP, said in a statement. "That hasn't proven to be the case though, as her numbers are hovering in the same range they were for most of the summer."