One week ahead of the special election in eastern North Carolina’s 3rd congressional district, a new poll of 500 likely voters from RRH Elections shows State Rep. Greg Murphy (R) leading his main rival, former Greenville Mayor Allen Thomas (D), by a margin of 51%-40%. Libertarian Tim Harris and Constitution Party candidate Greg Holt trail with 2% and 1% respectively, and 6% remain undecided. The survey also shows that Trump’s approval rating is slightly positive in the conservative-leaning district. In hypothetical 2020 matchups, Trump holds a lead over Joe Biden in the presidential race, while LG Dan Forest (R) has a modest lead over Gov. Roy Cooper (D) in the gubernatorial race in the district. The poll of 500 likely voters was conducted by RRH Elections through landline and cell phone calls, and has a margin of error of 4%. RRH Elections is solely responsible for data analysis for this survey, including demographic weighting. The survey results were weighted by gender only. RRH Elections is a group of volunteer hobbyist bloggers that has no connection to any candidate or organization active in this race. This poll was entirely crowd-funded by donations from the readers of our blog.
Flip over for full results and crosstabs!
Topline Results:
| 2019 Congressional Special Election | |
| Greg Murphy (R) | 51% |
| Allen Thomas (D) | 40% |
| Tim Harris (L) | 2% |
| Greg Holt (C) | 1% |
| Undecided | 6% |
| Trump Approval | |
| Approve | 49% |
| Disapprove | 45% |
| No Opinion | 6% |
| 2020 Presidential | |
| Donald Trump (R) | 50% |
| Joe Biden (D) | 39% |
| Undecided | 11% |
| 2020 Gubernatorial | |
| Dan Forest (R) | 46% |
| Roy Cooper (D) | 40% |
| Undecided | 14% |
Demographics & Crosstabs:
| Voter Status: | Total | Murphy (R) | Thomas (D) | Others | Undecided |
| Already Voted | 6% | 50% | 46% | 3% | N/A |
| Certain to Vote | 68% | 49% | 41% | 3% | 7% |
| Likely to Vote | 26% | 57% | 34% | 2% | 7% |
| Trump Approval: | Murphy (R) | Thomas (D) | Others | Undecided |
| Approve (49%) | 94% | 1% | 2% | 3% |
| Disapprove (45%) | 11% | 86% | 2% | 1% |
| No Opinion (6%) | 0% | 17% | 7% | 76% |
| Gender: | Total | Murphy (R) | Thomas (D) | Others | Undecided |
| Male | 47% | 57% | 32% | 5% | 6% |
| Female | 53% | 46% | 46% | 1% | 7% |
| Race: | Total | Murphy (R) | Thomas (D) | Others | Undecided |
| White | 74% | 60% | 30% | 4% | 7% |
| Black | 21% | 22% | 74% | 1% | 4% |
| Hispanic/Other | 5% | 52% | 36% | 0% | 12% |
| Age: | Total | Murphy (R) | Thomas (D) | Others | Undecided |
| 18-29 | 14% | 56% | 31% | 3% | 10% |
| 30-49 | 27% | 56% | 34% | 5% | 6% |
| 50-69 | 39% | 47% | 44% | 3% | 7% |
| 70+ | 21% | 52% | 44% | 1% | 4% |
| Region | Total | Murphy (R) | Thomas (D) | Others | Undecided |
| Greenville Area (Beaufort, Greene, Lenoir, Pitt) | 31% | 53% | 40% | 1% | 6% |
| New Bern Area (Carteret, Craven, Jones, Pamlico) | 29% | 47% | 40% | 5% | 8% |
| Outer Banks & NE NC (Camden, Chowan, Currituck, Dare, Hyde, Pasquotank, Perquimans, Tyrrell) | 22% | 43% | 45% | 4% | 8% |
| Jacksonville Area (Onlsow) | 18% | 66% | 30% | 1% | 2% |
Methodology:
All survey design and data analysis was conducted by RRH Elections. GAJ Solutions placed 4873 live calls to cell and landline phones of likely voters in North Carolina’s 3rd Congressional District on August 26-28, 2019, yielding a survey of 500 complete responses. Those who attested that they were unlikely to vote in the special election were not included in the survey. The poll was weighted by gender only; random deletion was not used as a method of weighting.
Discussion:
Ahead of next week’s special congressional election in eastern North Carolina’s 3rd congressional district, a new poll shows State Rep. Greg Murphy (R) in good position to hold the seat for Republicans. Murphy takes a majority of the vote, 51%, to 40% for his main rival, former Greenville Mayor Allen Thomas (D), a lead outside the poll’s 4% margin of error. Two minor candidates are in the low single digits, while 6% remain undecided. Murphy benefits from strong performances with male voters and near-unanimous support from those who approve of President Trump. Conversely, Thomas has strong backing from Black voters and ties Murphy among women. Geographically, the conservative Jacksonville area provides a strong support base for Murphy, while Thomas does well in the Outer Banks and Democratic-leaning Elizabeth City area. A potential small good sign for Thomas is that Murphy’s highest margin comes among the least likely voters in the poll, those who say they are likely rather than certain to vote, suggesting the margin could narrow with lower turnout. However, Murphy does still lead among both those who have already voted and those who are certain to vote.Looking ahead to the 2020 race, President Trump posts an 11-point over Joe Biden in the district, while Republican Lieutenant Governor Dan Forest leads incumbent Democrat Roy Cooper by 6 points in the district. As this seat is more conservative than the statewide electorate, these results suggest that both the presidential and gubernatorial races in North Carolina will be competitive. As for the congressional race, overall Murphy seems to be in solid position to hold the seat, but his margin of victory may underperform the prior landslide margins of his predecessor, the late Walter Jones Jr.
Poll Script:
There is a special election on September 10th for the US
Congress. Are you likely to vote in it?
Already Voted Early/Absentee
Certain to vote
Likely to vote
Which of the following candidates for Congress in the
September 10th special election are you most likely to vote for?
Republican Greg Murphy
Democrat Allen Thomas
Libertarian Tim Harris
Constitution Party candidate Greg Holt
I am totally undecided
Do you generally approve or disapprove of President Trump’s
performance in office?
Approve
Disapprove
No opinion
Thinking ahead to the 2020 election, if the presidential
election were between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, who would you be more likely
to vote for?
Republican Donald Trump
Democrat Joe Biden
I would be totally undecided
Thinking ahead to the 2020 election, if the gubernatorial
election were between Democratic Governor Roy Cooper and Republican Lieutenant
Governor Dan Forest, who would you be more likely to vote for?
Republican Dan Forest
Democrat Roy Cooper
I would be totally undecided
What is your gender?
Male
Female
What is your race?
White
Black/African-American
Other race
What is your age bracket?
18-29
30-49
50-69
70 and older
About RRH Elections:
RRH Elections is a Republican-leaning Elections Blog that discusses electoral politics, not policy, with particular attention to congressional and state races. We cover electoral news daily and provide insight into the electoral landscape. Using our in-house expertise, we have produced ten polls, eight of which have predicted the margin in their races to within four points. RRH Elections is run by a team of 9 unpaid hobbyists, all with no connection to any candidate or group active in this race. Funding for this poll comes entirely from the donations of our readers. If you enjoyed this poll, please visit our site and donate so that we may bring you more surveys like it in the future. Our site can be found at http://rrhelections.com. To contact us for comments or questions about this poll, the best way is by email at rrhelections@gmail.com.
24 Comments
Thx for doing this poll.
Thanks! Doesn’t bode well for NC-9…
32, M, Registered DINO, NY-17This is a terrible result for the GOP, but I suspect not weighting by education has a lot to do with it
Somewhere between Tea Partier and a ModerateYes; weighting might be dicey since it’s a special, but I wish the poll had at least asked about education.
My hunch is that Murphy will end up winning by a larger number then that, depending on what Dorian does to the turnout in this CD.
R, NC-3Likely vs. Registered voters is probably another factor in the D-leaning skew of the electorate. NC-9 is probably going to be a far higher turnout, which tends to help the party that the district leans toward.
NC-02, IINO. Trump is the coroner, not the instigator. Trump2020, Rand2024, Anti-Sanctimony.Good job! Looking forward to seeing NC-9!
I think that those age crosstabs are rather telling. There’s still gas in the tank for Republicans in the rurals, at least in the eastern part of the state. The funeral effect marches onward.
27, R, TN-09Vote for the asshole, it's important.
As always this comment makes my day: “random deletion was not used as a method of weighting”
34, PA-6, Stop the Revolution.Lol
32, M, Registered DINO, NY-17If undecideds break 50-50 we get a ten point win. Acceptable.
Saint John-Rothesay since 1783. Pro-worker conservative. Go Leafs!To me, any win in a special election is a good win.
MI-08 - Industrial Midwest style conservative. Anybody but Biden.But does this bode well for the McCready-Bishop race? This seems to be an underwhelming margin for this district. Murphy of course will win easily, but I would imagine that he should be getting a share of the vote several points higher than this.
22-Independent from Colorado. Some agreement with both parties.I tend to agree with Republican Michigander… Special elections are unique beasts and you see a lot of weird things that cannot be easily extrapolated to general elections happen.
34, PA-6, Stop the Revolution.Good poll overall but the only thing I’ll pick at is your North East Outer Banks numbers.
There’s almost no possible way the D is leading there unless the electorate is even more D than last year. (i’ll add it up to a small sample size for this issue), but even in our generic “D/R” race last year which was our judicial statewide race with no extra people running, Heath won all but Pasquotank, with the closest races after that being a 5-6 point wins in both Hyde and Tyrell counties.
I’d have to say that 8% is almost entirely R voters, but with the hurricane who knows how many voters will be able to vote this week and then on election day next Tuesday.
Thanks again for the poll, but one point about the demographics. You use 21% for Black voters, which is about their percentage of registered voters. But so far NCBOE data indicates that the Black share of the early vote is only about 14.5% of voters, considerably less than the registration share. If the Black vote stays at about that level as more votes comes in then Murphy will probably run a couple of points better than your poll, since Blacks tend to vote heavily Dem.
But on the other hand there’s no way Murphy is actually getting almost a quarter of the black vote.
Yep. In this case we do our best to make those sorts of errors cancel each other out.
R, MD-7, Jorgensen 2020 I guess.Thank you for the poll, shamlet and RRH!
McCain Republican. OH-16. Male, Russoanglohispanophone.Anyone wanna make predictions?
I’ll go first! Murphy 57-Thomas 43.
Saint John-Rothesay since 1783. Pro-worker conservative. Go Leafs!56R-43D-1C
Im6 going to say 55-43 for a solid 12 point victory, but half the margin of Trump-Clinton.
I am an Amy Klobuchar Democrat.My prediction – 55-41-4 for Murphy.
MI-08 - Industrial Midwest style conservative. Anybody but Biden.I think it’ll be like 59-40 for Murphy
New Account for inactive Old Poster.Trump Republican. Big Tent good, loyalty a must.