Tag Archives: Club for Growth PAC

NC Poll: Tillis Vulnerable

By Jim Ellis

North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis (R)

May 29, 2019 — One of the key 2020 Senate races lies in North Carolina where first-term Sen. Thom Tillis (R) is seeking his second term and finds himself in a shaky political situation. A new poll suggests he has vulnerability even within the Republican primary.

A WPA Intelligence poll for the Club for Growth PAC (May 19-21; 502 likely North Carolina Republican primary voters) finds Sen. Tillis leading a hypothetical GOP primary against three-term Rep. Mark Walker (R-Greensboro) wealthy businessman Garland Tucker, and accountant Sandy Smith, 40-17-11-2 percent. Though Tillis is below 50 percent, North Carolina election law requires only a 30 percent vote total to win nomination, meaning the senator would be well over the required minimum.

At this point, Tucker and Smith are announced Republican primary opponents, with the former having the potential of becoming a competitive candidate. Several weeks ago, Rep. Walker ruled out running for the Senate, but his latest statements appear to suggest that he is more open to entering the statewide campaign.

Isolating Sen. Tillis and Rep. Walker into a head-to-head contest, which is not realistic from a probable political perspective but is helpful in a polling context, finds Sen. Tillis leading 43-34 percent. But, WPA finds it takes little in the way of persuasion to arrive at a very different result.

According to poll results, when just the following bios are read, the ballot test virtually switches:

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