Despite rising job approval, Kay Hagan puts up her worst numbers yet against unsettled NC GOP field in new PPP poll

While some things have changed since 1998, a lot about the North Carolina electorate hasn't, according to Public Policy Polling crosstabs. That year, fmr. Sen. Lauch Faircloth (R-NC) (left) lost after one term in the U.S. Senate to newcomer John Edwards (D-NC). Photos courtesy of Ray Lustig / The Washington Post and Brooks Kraft/Corbis Sygma.

 
For all the chatter about the Republican's current inability to recruit a quality candidate to challenge North Carolina's junior Senator in the 2014 election, a new Public Policy Polling survey offers the state GOP with a glimmer of hope. Out of the Democratic pollster's six polls on the race since December 2012, a Republican named Cherie Berry has finally managed to TIE Sen. Kay Hagan (D), despite Hagan reaching her highest job approval rating yet (46/40%).

The chart below documents the results of PPP's 2014 NC Senate poll since December 2012, including only the candidates surveyed in the most recent poll:

Unfortunately for pollsters and researchers, exit polling in non-presidential year North Carolina Senate races is hard to come by (in 2010, there was no exit polling because Richard Burr led Elaine Marshall consistently throughout the campaign; in 2006, there was no NC Senate race; in 2002, major malfunctions with VNS led to exit polls being off, and as a result, incredibly difficult to come by. 1998 was the last NC Midterm with readily available exit poll data). This fact is important because without such data, it can be difficult for pollsters to weight the expected electorate.

Nevertheless, a frequently stated rule of thumb regarding midterms is that they typically feature a more white, less ethnically diverse, older, and generally more Republican type of voter than seen in Presidential election years.

So how do PPP's most recent findings regarding the potential 2014 electorate stack up as compared to the 2012 NC presidential electorate, and the 1998 Midterm electorate?

At least in terms of racial identification, the PPP crosstabs reveal an electorate that looks very similar to the one seen in 1998, when Democratic pariah John Edwards, then just beginning his political career and still well-liked, defeated 1-term incumbent Republican Senator and pig-farmer Lauch Faircloth, 51-47%. That year, 76% of the electorate identified as white, 22% identified as black, and 2% Hispanic/other. Flash forward 16 years to PPP's May survey, and the electorate is 76% white, 18% black, and 6% Hispanic/other.

In terms of partisan identification, age, and gender, the crosstabs diverge from the '98 Edwards/Faircloth race, at times resembling the 2012 electorate, and at times resembling nothing North Carolina electoral politics has experienced yet.

The chart below displays the North Carolina electorate in every election featuring a readily available exit poll since 1992, broken down by gender identification, age identification, and partisan identification: