The governor race would have been close if Republican Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson wasn’t an unpopular candidate, Jason Husser, director of Elon Poll, said. The most recent Elon Poll came out Sept. 24, showing 49% of voters favor Democrat Attorney General Josh Stein over Robinson. In contrast, the presidential race is still close and are polling less than one point apart.
“It's a very competitive state,” Husser said. “The outlier right now is not the presidential race, it's Mark Robinson specifically.”
The poll surveyed 800 registered voters in North Carolina between Sept. 4 and 13 — before inflammatory comments Robinson had written on a pornographic site came to light Sept. 19. One reason to explain Robinson trailing in polling is the Republican Governors Association pulled funding for his race and members of his staff have stopped working with him, Husser said.
“He's in a position where he was already behind,” Husser said. “Now he has a scandal on top of it. He lost his team of staff, and he's lost his financial backing from other Republicans.”
Husser said the economy and abortion remained important issues to people. Only 50% of people surveyed believe there will be a fair and accurate count of votes, and 65% of people surveyed think it's likely people working for either party will try and fraudulently change the election outcome. Fifty-two percent of people surveyed also think it is very likely the use of artificial intelligence will affect the outcome of the presidential election.
Over 7 in 10 voters were concerned about election-related violence breaking out after the election or near inauguration, similar to results from the first Elon Poll this semester Aug. 27. Husser said the poll did not find an increase in concerns for election related violence, but concerns were still high. Husser said while people are concerned about violence, not everyone is pessimistic about the future of the country.
“The majority of people are not saying that they have a view that America is in decline,” Husser said. “There's not a majority that say they're optimistic or hopeful, but there's still a solid number of people who think, ‘Well, things are going to be difficult,’ they indicate that they have some optimism left.”