Obama Widens North Carolina Lead on Clinton

Obama Widens Lead on Clinton
Both Democrats Trail McCain in General Election Matchup

Raleigh, N.C. – The Civitas Institute’s April DecisionMaker shows Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) leading Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) 45-27 in the Democratic primary for President. 28 percent of those polled were undecided.

“Unless Hillary Clinton can do something dramatic in the next few weeks to change voter sentiment, it appears that Sen. Obama is on his way to winning North Carolina quite handily,” stated Civitas Institute Executive Director Francis DeLuca. “A victory next Tuesday in Pennsylvania seems to be Sen. Clinton’s only hope of saving her campaign for President,” DeLuca added.

Looking forward to a potential General election matchup, presumptive Republican Presidential nominee Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) leads both Democratic counterparts by sizeable margins. McCain leads Obama 48-39 and leads Clinton 50-37.

“Despite the hundreds of thousands of dollars in television advertising and multiple personal appearances in the state by Senator Obama, Senator Clinton and their respective surrogates in the past month, neither candidate has been able to cut into Senator McCain’s lead,” DeLuca noted. Civitas’ February DecisionMaker poll showed Sen. McCain leading Senators Obama and Clinton by 46-36 and 48-36 percent margins, respectively.

“The assumption that Sen. Obama would put North Carolina in play for the Democrats in November does not seem to be holding true at this time,” DeLuca added.

The study of 800 registered voters was conducted April 9-10 by TelOpinion Research of Arlington, Virginia. 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 2002, 2004 or 2006 general election or were newly registered voters since 2006. The voters were interviewed using live callers.

The confidence interval associated with a sample of this size is such that: 95% of the time, results from 800 interviews (registered voters) will be within +-3.7% of the “True Values.” “True Values” refer to the results obtained if were possible to interview every person in North Carolina who had voted in either the 2002, 2004 or 2006 general elections or were newly registered voters since 2006.