New Poll Shows Post-Debate Bump For Democrat Hillary Clinton

A poll released today shows a post-debate bump for presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.  

The Elon University live caller survey of 799 registered voters was conducted in late September immediately following the presidential debate, and just before the leaked tax records of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump came to light.

Assistant professor Jason Husser directed the poll. He says there's been a strong shift in support for Hillary Clinton in North Carolina.

"Normally if there's a post-debate bump, it's only 2-3 points," says Huser. "In this case it was close to 7 points. Which is unusually high. The question is, is how lasting will this be? If this debate bump lasts for three weeks, and then Clinton is able to get additional positive news, then we could see it help carry her into the election."

Husser says the part of the electorate that may have had the biggest positive impact on Clinton's numbers is women voters whose support has climbed by 8 percent over the past two weeks. For her to carry this state, she'll need to expand that number, and create a larger than normal gender gap. 

Husser says that there's still plenty of time before the presidential election for things to change. He predicts that the bump should return closer to the mean over the next two weeks.

The Elon poll also shows that Democratic challenger Roy Cooper has moved ahead of Republican Pat McCrory in the governor's race.

Husser says it's not entirely clear from the data why that shift occurred.

"That said, if you look at Independents, they are now evenly divided, 49 for McCrory, and 51 for Cooper. Republican candidates need to win a majority of Independents simply because Democrats are more numerous in terms of registered voters in the state. So the main action that I've noticed in the cross tabs related to the governor's race is really about Independents and that Independents appear to be breaking for Cooper."

What then may have caused Cooper's surge in the poll? Husser's best guess is that it's fallout over the controversial House Bill 2 which Governor McCrory signed into law and that Cooper opposed.

Meanwhile, in the senate race, Republican Senator Richard Burr and Democratic challenger Deborah Ross are in a statistical tie. Husser says, if that tie continues into the election, it would strongly favor the incumbent.

"Republicans tend to—not always—but they tend to be much more reliable at turning out to vote. So, as a result, if there is a tie, I usually in my head think ‘Well, this race is probably going to go to Republicans,'" says Husser.

When addressing Burr's apparent difficulty thus far in extending a lead over his challenger, Husser points to the fact that at the outset, he seemed very well-positioned to retain his seat, and it was generally considered to be Burr's race to lose.

“But,” he adds, "On the other hand, this has been a bad week for Republicans. McCrory dealt with HB2 fallout. Trump dealt with—I'll just say—a lackluster debate performance, and yet Burr actually gained a half a point from our last polling result. So for me that suggests that Burr's campaign is probably the strongest of the three Republican campaigns in the state."

Did anything in this most recent Elon poll “jump out” at Husser?

"There's one thing and it really just shows up in a footnote, and it's easy to get lost in the horserace polling questions. And that's about people's perceptions of protests following police shootings. Now I just thought it was historically interesting and worth noting that we found only 27 percent of people believe that protests after police shootings will lead to positive change. Fifty-nine percent believe that protesting will make things worse. What's interesting to me is that Gallup asked the very same question in 1963—over 50 years ago—and in that question, 27 percent thought that demonstrations would help, 60 percent thought demonstrations would hurt. So, I'm not saying that these protests in Charlotte and Civil Rights protests are the same, but we are finding almost exactly the same numbers in peoples' response to the protests."