NC Republicans are in trouble, but there’s still plenty of ti...
NC Republicans are in trouble, but there’s still plenty of time to fix it
The latest CJ Poll has arrived, and — especially when combined with the poor off-year election results last week — it might be time for North Carolina Republicans to worry. The numbers are, of course, just a snapshot in time, so they may shift by our next poll. But the trends aren’t good news. What is good news for Republicans is that they have about a year until the midterms.
The first thing to notice from the poll is that people are not happy, and after the initial honeymoon period following the 2024 elections, this trend has been pretty consistent, whether talking about the direction of the country or the state. Only 38% of those polled thought we were going the right direction as a country, and 55% said we were on the wrong track. As you can see below, this trend has gotten worse and worse over the year.
And the bad news for Republicans is that voters appear to be punishing the Republicans more than the Democrats. The generic ballot (which measures the party the voter favors without considering actual candidates) for the state legislature has typically been about even, or with a slight advantage for Republicans, but suddenly a four-point advantage for Democrats has opened up.
The Republicans have a razor thin supermajority in the Senate and are one vote shy of a supermajority in the House. If Democrats have a wave year, Republicans would lose these supermajorities while likely holding onto their majorities. But to get anything done with bare majorities and a Democrat in the Governor’s Mansion, state Republican leaders would have to make major compromises on almost everything coming through the legislature.
The generic ballot for US Congress typically mirrors the one for the state legislature, so we can assume this same shift towards the Democrats is in effect there too. The state legislature recently redistricted North Carolina’s only swing congressional district, NC-1 in the northeast of the state, to be more of a lean-Republican seat. To do this, they made NC-3 in the southeast of the state a little less Republican. If there is a shift of a few points towards the Democrats in next year’s elections, both of these, as well as NC-11 in the mountains, could become competitive. In an unlikely nightmare scenario caused by a major blue wave, Republicans could lose all three.
In arguable the most important race in 2026, the US Senate race to replace outgoing Thom Tillis, our last poll showed former national and state GOP Chair Michael Whatley cutting former Gov. Roy Cooper’s lead in half, from 8% to 4%. But in this poll, this entire gain, plus some, disappeared, as Whatley now trails by 8.7%. Showing that is more likely due to the general shift back to the Democrats than his campaign faltering, when we ran a head to head with Cooper against the other GOP primary candidate, Don Brown, Brown fared even worse, with a 10-point gap.
In a midterm year, a lot of voter sentiment comes down to what people think about the person in the White House. Generally, even if things are going fairly well, they will punish the party of the one in power some. But if voters are not happy, that punishment may be particularly harsh — with lost US House and Senate control, and at the state level, lost state legislatures and Governor’s Mansions.
With that in mind, Trump’s slipping approval ratings may be the cause of much of the GOP’s slipping. Trump’s “strong approval” in North Carolina has dropped over the last four polls, going from 37.6% now to 32%. And his “strong disapproval” numbers have been steadily increasing, from 44.6% now to 48.2%. Notably, Trump’s total approval number (45.7%) is below just the strongly disapprove number, and well below the total disapprove number of 52.8%.
Interestingly, the voters appeared to blame both parties about equally for the federal shutdown, even giving Republicans the slight edge. So Trump and the GOP are likely getting more negative blowback due to people’s economic worries, which voters in our last poll placed as by far their most important issues. The poll showed voters are not too confident in the US economy at the moment, with “very confident” being under 10% and not at all confident being about 38%.
The tariffs appear to be especially unpopular. Only 19.1% of people believe they are helping their family’s financial situation, while 55.8% believe they are hurting them, while the numbers were slightly better for what people thought they might be doing to the economy at large.
Last week’s off-year elections, where Democrats dominated across the state, should have set off an alarm for Republicans. And this poll just confirmed what many political observers saw in their post-election analysis. But there is an entire year until the 2026 midterms next November. A lot can (and will) happen between now and then. If the economy starts roaring, expect these numbers to shift back. There are likely other things Republicans can do to regain some ground in North Carolina — like pass a budget, make it easier to build housing, and address spiraling health care costs. If the numbers stick, or slip more, though, it could signal major 2026 losses.
“NC Republicans are in trouble, but there’s still plenty of time to fix it” was originally published on www.carolinajournal.com.
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