With little more than a month remaining before Election Day, President George W. Bush has extended his lead over challenger Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., in North Carolina to a 6 percent margin—the widest spread between the candidates since Kerry became the Democratic nominee for president.
According to the most recent News & Observer, WRAL-TV and WUNC radio poll, 50 percent of North Carolina voters prefer Bush to Kerry, who garnered support from only 44 percent of respondents.
The results of the poll—conducted by the group Research 2000 via telephone from Sept. 20 to 22—indicate that the president has doubled his lead in the state since last month, when only a 3 percent spread separated him from Kerry.
On the issue of the United States’ actions in Iraq, 47 percent of those polled said the situation was “not worth going to war over,” while 46 percent said it merited U.S. involvement. But 49 percent of respondents also said they believed the war has made the nation safer from the threat of international terrorism, in comparison to 44 percent who said it has not.
The results of the statewide poll mirror polls conducted nationally in the past week. A Sept. 23 to 26 Washington Post-ABC News poll indicated that voters nationwide prefer Bush to Kerry by a margin of 51 to 44 percent. Fifty-three percent of those polled also said they would trust Bush to do a better job handling the situation in Iraq, in comparison to 40 percent who said they would trust Kerry to do a better job than the current president.
The spread between the presidential candidates on the question of whom voters would trust to better handle the national economy is slightly smaller, but Bush still tops his challenger, 48 to 43 percent.
A CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll conducted from Sept. 24 to 26 that shows the president leading Kerry by 52 to 44 percent also asked respondents which candidate’s policies would “move the country in the right direction” overall. Fifty-four percent of those polled said Bush’s policy package would be the better choice, while 44 percent expressed support for Kerry’s proposals.
Despite North Carolina voters’ and the general electorate’s increasing preference for the incumbent, Kerry campaign officials are confident that the upcoming debates between the two candidates will diminish and could possibly eliminate the current spread.
“We think the race is very close—probably closer than those polls indicate,” said Ron Eckstein, a spokesperson for the Kerry campaign in North Carolina. “We think we’ll get a lot of late momentum after the debates and the public seeing where the candidates are [on the issues]. We will probably have a lead.”
Bush campaign officials, however, said the current poll numbers are an accurate reflection of the growing popular support for the president, and the Sept. 30, Oct. 8 and Oct. 13 debates will only solidify Bush’s lead over Kerry. Unlike Eckstein, members of the Bush camp said the debates are a last resort for Kerry to make a respectable showing in the polls, not a chance for him to improve his prospects and ultimately take the election.
“The debates are the only thing left that John Kerry can utilize to bring this campaign back to dead even,” said Matthew Dowd, a chief strategist for the Bush campaign, in an interview with USA Today.
The first presidential debate, held at the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Fla., will be broadcast on most major television networks Thursday at 9 p.m.
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