Raleigh, N.C. – Only three months after a record-breaking voter turnout in the 2008 election, potential candidates for an open North Carolina U.S. Senate seat in 2010 all start out with very low statewide name recognition. According to the latest Civitas Poll released today, a majority of voters in North Carolina are not aware of either the incumbent US Senator Richard Burr (R) or his two rumored potential opponents in 2010, Congressman Heath Shuler (D), or N.C. Attorney General Roy Cooper (D).
Full text of questions:
| "Opinion of Richard Burr" | "Opinion of Heath Shuler" | "Opinion of Roy Cooper" | |
| Very Favorable | 14% | 6% | 14% |
| Somewhat Favorable | 23% | 11% | 18% |
| Somewhat Unfavorable | 7% | 1% | 1% |
| Very Unfavorable | 3% | 1% | 1% |
| No Opinion | 30% | 20% | 21% |
| Not Aware | 24% | 61% | 44% |
“While Senator Burr enjoys a slightly higher overall favorable rating than the other two, none of the three potential candidates are widely known among the electorate,” said Francis De Luca, executive director of the Civitas Institute. “Congressman Shuler is a virtual unknown outside of his district in Western N.C.”
Current N.C. Attorney General Roy Cooper and US Congressman Heath Shuler are among the two most publicly speculated candidates to challenge Burr.
“Despite being in office an additional three plus years, taking over the highly publicized Duke lacrosse case, and just recently spending in excess of $2.5 million on re-election, Attorney General Cooper has only marginally improved his favorability since October 2005,” said De Luca.
Civitas tested voters’ opinion of Roy Cooper back in October 2005:
Favorable: 23%
Unfavorable: 4%
Unsure: 25%
Not aware: 47%
“All three candidates have a tremendous amount of work to do to familiarize themselves with voters over the next two years. It is almost as if voters are starting off with a blank slate of candidates to choose from for their next US Senator,” De Luca concluded.
The Civitas Poll is the only monthly live-caller poll of critical issues and policies facing North Carolina. Complete results of the poll will be released at noon on Thursday, Jan. 29 at the Clarion Hotel in downtown Raleigh during the monthly poll luncheon hosted by Civitas.
Click here for full results and crosstabs.
The study of 600 registered voters was conducted Jan. 19-22, 2009. All respondents were part of a fully representative sample of registered voters in North Carolina. For purposes of this study, voters we interviewed had to have voted in either the 2004, 2006 or 2008 general elections or were newly registered voters since 2008.
The confidence interval associated with a sample of this size is such that: 95 percent of the time, results from 600 interviews (registered voters) will be within +-4% of the “True Values.” True Values refer to the results obtained if it were possible to interview every person in North Carolina who had voted in either the 2004, 2006 or 2008 general elections or were newly registered voters since 2008.
###
If you would like more information regarding this topic or to schedule an interview with Chris Hayes, please contact Gabe Dellinger at 919.747.8065 or Gabe.Dellinger@nccivitas.org.