THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, October 31, 1996 TAG: 9610310320
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY MASON PETERS, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 53 lines
In less than a week, the ballots will have been cast and counted.
In the final days before the North Carolina presidential election, a poll Wednesday showed Republican Bob Dole ahead of President Clinton, 47 percent to 42 percent.
``Clinton remains relatively unpopular in the Tar Heel State,'' said Brad Coker, a director of the Mason-Dixon Poll which was commissioned by The Virginian-Pilot.
``Only 40 percent of voters have a favorable opinion of Clinton, up from 37 percent a month ago, while 44 percent have an unfavorable opinion, down from 46 percent,'' Coker said.
``It now appears likely that Dole will win the state's 14 electoral votes on Tuesday,'' he added.
Only 2 percent of North Carolina voters said they would support Ross Perot, the survey showed. Nine percent of voters questioned were undecided about the presidential candidates.
But in an across-the-board appraisal of all of the presidential and vice presidential candidates, the poll showed Dole and his running mate, Jack Kemp, ahead of the Democratic challengers.
Dole had a 46 percent favorable name recognition and a 37 percent unfavorable name recognition, the poll showed. The figures for Jack Kemp were 42 percent favorable and 29 percent unfavorable.
Vice President Al Gore had a 41 percent favorable rating to a 37 percent unfavorable.
Perot's favorable name rating was 15 percent to 67 percent unfavorable.
Pat Choate, Perot's running mate, had a 3 percent favorable and a 23 percent unfavorable rating.
The Mason-Dixon poll showed that a gender gap exists. Among men, Dole holds a 50 percent to 40 percent advantage while women evenly split, 44 percent to 44 percent, among the two presidential candidates.
Clinton as a Democratic candidate holds an 89 percent to 4 percent edge among black voters. Dole holds a 58 percent to 29 percent lead among whites, the poll showed.
Regionally, Northeastern North Carolina supported Dole with 48 percent of the likely votes, second only to the Greensboro/Winston-Salem area, which favored Dole with a likely 51 percent of the expected votes.
The Mason-Dixon survey sampled 808 registered voters Oct. 28 and Oct. 29. The voters were evenly matched among men and women and whites numbered 644 to 162 blacks. There were 464 Democrats, 290 Republicans and 54 Independents sampled.
Coker said the margin for error in the poll was 3.5 percentage points.
``This means that the `true' figure would fall within that range if the entire population were sampled,'' he said.
KEYWORDS: POLLS PRESIDENTIAL RACE 1996 NORTH
CAROLINA by CNB