(The Center Square) – Favorability over unfavorability is greater for the Republican majorities General Assembly and the Republican majority state Supreme Court in North Carolina than it is for first-term Democratic Gov. Josh Stein or Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Roy Cooper.
The High Point University Poll sampling 1,000 adults across the state Jan. 9-21 was overwhelmingly positive on all. The positive marks were 45%-23% for the General Assembly, 45%-24% for the North Carolina Supreme Court, 45%-27% for Stein and 44%-34% for Cooper.
Respondents were also asked about job approval by Stein. He scored well there, 44% approving to 24% disapproving with 32% unsure.
Cooper, the former two-term governor and four-term attorney general, is expected to emerge from the March 3 primaries with a November battle against Republican Michael Whatley. While 22% were unsure or not familiar with Cooper, 56% said the same about Whatley against 23% favorable and 20% unfavorable.
Republicans have majorities of 30-20 in the state Senate and 71-49 in the House of Representatives. On the state Supreme Court, the split is 5-2 Republicans with one seat on the fall election ballot.
Registered voters in the state this cycle will choose a U.S. senator, all 14 U.S. House representatives, one state Supreme Court judge and three appellate justices. All 170 seats in the General Assembly – 50 in the Senate, 120 in the House of Representatives – are also on the ballot. There are no statewide referenda.
Only presidential cycle years have longer ballots for the more than 7.7 million voters in the nation’s ninth largest state.
Absentee voting by mail began Jan. 12, voter registration deadline is Friday, and early in-person voting begins next week on Thursday. The primaries are March 3.
Second-term Republican President Donald Trump has won the state three times, including in 2024 as part of a seven-state battleground sweep that scored 93-0 in electoral college votes against Democrat Kamala Harris. The High Point Poll sample was unkind, however, with 48% disapproving of how he handles his job and 41% approving.
His best issues were securing the southern border (51% approve, 38% disapprove), protecting American workers (48%-41%), national security in general (47%-42%), gas prices (46%-42%) and voting integrity (45%-39%).
His worst issues were inflation (59% disapprove, 31% approve), the national debt (53% disapprove, 30% approve) and government fraud and corruption (54% disapprove, 33% approve). For the economy in general, it was 49% disapprove and 39% approve.
The poll did not adhere to usual assumptions associated with random selection and therefore does not have a margin of error; rather, the credibility interval is +/- 3.3%.
