NORTH CAROLINA: Dem AG Roy Cooper Grows Lead Over Gov. Pat McCrory In Gubernatorial Race Poll

The Charlotte News & Observer reports:

Attorney General Roy Cooper has a growing lead over Gov. Pat McCrory in their race for governor, a new poll shows. While previous surveys have shown the candidates neck-and-neck within a margin of error, the new Elon University Poll gives Cooper a 48-42 percent lead. The margin of error in this survey was just under 4 percent. Cooper had a 3-point advantage in an average of the three most recent polls.

According to the Elon poll, McCrory’s job approval rating was 37 percent, compared to 49 percent who said they disapprove of the job he is doing. Close to 14 percent said they didn’t know or were unsure. Nearly 43 percent of registered voters said they approved of the job Cooper is doing, while 27 percent disapprove, and 30 percent said they didn’t know or were unsure. Elon pollsters say that is McCrory’s lowest approval rating since first polled two years ago.

Pollsters also asked about HB2:

On the controversial LGBT ordinance known as HB2, the survey found 49 percent of respondents said the state should prohibit cities from passing ordinances like Charlotte did, allowing transgender people to use the bathroom of the sex the identify with. Thirty-nine percent said cities should be allowed to enact policies like that, and 11 percent said they don’t know.

Nearly two-thirds of those who said they were born-again Christians support state prohibitions on “bathroom bill” ordinances; 49 percent of Catholics feel that way, and 46 percent identified as “other Christians” do also. Sixty-three percent of those who said they were not religious think cities should be able to enact their own ordinances.

See the full polling results here. Last month Cooper declared that he will refuse to defend the state against the lawsuit which seeks to overturn HB2.