Poll. Live caller with students being the callers. Now we do online and live caller. With covid because of restrictions we have on campus, we have had to temporarily go to online only. Almost everyienced method of survey people from North Carolina. Fare inw did your polls 2016 . What have you changed . Guest that is a great question. In 2016, the polling average had Hillary Clinton up by 3. 3 . We know that donald trump won the state. We were in the middle that. We recognized that something was wrong with our sampling. We tried to look at who really turned out versus what we were predicting . Theirllsters weight samples to try to predict what the turnout will be. We looked very carefully at that. We adjusted our turnout models based on 2016 and 2018 to get a more accurate model. We adjusted the questions in our survey to try to get at whether people were telling us the truth. In 2016 that an small group of people were not honest about their support for donald trump. Host the latest meredith pull taken october 16 through the 19 shows the former Vice President with a lead. What is the margin of error . Guest the margin of error was 3. 5 . It is just outside of the margin of error. I thought it was going to be an extraordinarily close election even with those results. In the last weeks of 2016, things tightened in North Carolina. I wish i could have done one more poll closer to tuesday to see if that tightening would continue. If we look at the real clear politics polling average in North Carolina, we see it under 1 . With most margins of error in this being around 3. 5 , race could go either way. Host how did you find unaffiliated voters . Those unaffiliated voters breaking for joe biden 55 to donald trump 28 . Guest we use, just like most pollsters online, we use a panel. Peoplesoft identify. Names with people already affiliated by party. People self identify. Carolina doesorth not always mean a swing voter. It really depends on where the voter is. A lot of urban unaffiliated voters, young people who have been registering as unaffiliated, they are democratic leaners. People in the middle part of the state who register as unaffiliated our republican leaners. Unaffiliated is a fun category to look at, but i look at it in different ways. , gender, age education. Host what role will these unaffiliated voters play this year . Guest i think they will be the deciding voters. Theyu look at democrats, are voting for joe biden at high rates. If you look at republicans, it is true in the reverse. Democrats and republicans are locked in. The unaffiliateds, we are talking maybe 10 of North Carolina really would be considered swing voters. We pretty much know that urban unaffiliated voters are going to vote for joe biden. Rural unaffiliated voters are going to vote for donald trump. We are looking for those 10 have not made up their mind or are going back and forth. That is why these last few days of the election cycle are so important for those people who have not voted. Over 4 Million People have voted. Host another part of your pull in midoctober shows 51 of white voters prefer the president. Joeof black voters prefer biden. 63 of hispanic voters prefer joe biden. How much of the electorate do they make up . Guest what we have seen since 2016 is a huge influx in North Carolina. We are one of the fastestgrowing states. Over 1. 5 million new people have registered since 2016. They tend to be younger and browner. We are getting a lot of minority voters in the state and college aged people. As you look at the electorate and how it has changed since 2016, the percentage of white voters is probably going to drop by a couple of Percentage Points compared to where it was. The percentage of black voters will probably stay the same. It is about how they turn out. Hispanic voters have been increasing in numbers in the state as well as asian voters. We are seeing the increased influence of minority voters in the North Carolina electorate. Voters8 of rural preferred the present. Prefersuburban voters biden. Could these voters make up the difference for the former Vice President and show why he has the advantage . We have seen the propelling of suburbs purpling of suburbs in the last few election cycles. Is inthe battleground is the circles immediately around the major metropolitan areas, charlotte, raleigh, and even the ing counties a little bit outside of the suburbs that are changing as the population changes. That is why you are seeing when the candidates or surrogates come to North Carolina, the president is going to rural areas. Joe biden and his surrogates are going to urban and suburban areas. Host joe biden is traveling to the state over the weekend. Supporting the biden ticket, go ahead. Caller good morning, greta. Good morning, mr. Mclennan. You. Is my poll for i voted for mr. Biden. I took my ballot to the absentee board of elections. I am glad it is done. Well iot get through, got through, but i did not get to speak to mr. Boyum. That it kills say me to listen to these republican roting like tape recorders donald trump talking about how black people are doing so much better under donald trump when it absolutely is not true. What is surreal about it is these are the very people whose usual opinions concerning black people is that we are lazy, do not work, we live on welfare and birth numerous babies out of wedlock. That is usually what comes out of their mouths concerning black people. Now, blacks are doing so great under trump. If you live in this city and cities are, tent mushrooming all over the place. People everywhere without places to live thanks to this clown in the white house. Thank you, greta. Host im going to go on to pete in washington, pennsylvania, supporting the president. Then we will have you respond. Go ahead. Caller hello . Host yes, pete. Caller good morning. Mind, going to carolina, always liked to visit, wonderful state. I am a christian. Will you tell me about the demographics, the religious carolina . N in north it is mostly baptists . Host im going to jump in because it is very hard to understand you. He is talking about the religious vote. Guest the religious vote is very important in North Carolina. We are part of the bible belt historically. The baptist denomination is the largest protestant denomination in North Carolina. The evangelical vote is significant. He raises a good point about the support for the president. From theome strongly evangelicals within the protestant community. Made a goods caller point about the messaging related to the black community in North Carolina. Both callers raised an interesting point. This is going to be such a close election in North Carolina that if the president s messaging blackeels off a few voters, young black voters in urban areas, or if joe biden is ewle to attract a f evangelical voters, they could make a difference in a close election. Host what is important to these evangelical voters . Guest the issue of the Supreme Court appointment, justice seems in other polls that have been done in North Carolina seems very significant. Her importance around social issues that they attach a lot of importance to come the opportunity for overturning roe v. Wade, or you hear some evangelicals in the state, they are concerned about things like marriage equality. The symbolism of justice barretts appointment and the realities of ways she could vote are important. Host how do you think it impacts the senate race . The senate race is not as tight as the president ial race. It is a margin of error race. It is something republicans throughout North Carolina felt strongly about. In the polls i have seen, they did not think Mitch Mcconnell was doing anything wrong to advance the Supreme Court justice late in the election cycle. Democrats felt differently. That is what i am watching for, when we get the final results, who turned out . I would think the Supreme Court nomination hearings as well as the confirmation of justice if the republicans come out and larger than expected numbers, will be a major factor. Host james, North Carolina. Caller good morning. I tell you, i really have a problem with all of these polls. Ares almost like the polls there because they always overemphasize the democratic vote. Im talking going back 20 years. The democrats are always in the lead initially when everyone knows nobody has got a 14 point lead, 12 point lead. It gives the democrats a false sense of security, and by that time, registration is over. 10 days before the vote, it is two points. This is not something that happens rarely. This happens every time. It is a must as if the pollsters it is almost as if the pollsters are not scientifically equipped to do it, or they do not get real samples to say this is where we are going rather than this is where we are at, which means very little. Know if this is a secret cabal doing this or why the polls do it, but theres got to be something to it that it happens this way. Host james, lets get an answer. Guest it raises a question that many people raise, particularly after 2016. Polls this following year, and let me remind you, in North Carolina the real clear politics polling averages under one point, so even my poll which was done a little while ago every joe biden poll has tightened. We do adjust our methods because we are not perfect and we do make mistakes. Cabal. S no if you look at the polls, they are all done differently. Forprofitome companies, some attached to news organizations. Over the place, but we are different in terms of our assumptions. If you do Pay Attention to the we have madear, adjustments and i hope the polls continue to be used after this election cycle. There is an opinion piece and a couple of the papers today talking to pollsters who try to get a feel for the secret trump voter, and the way they go about asking that is not directly will you vote for the president . But instead, how do you think your neighbors are going to vote and your friends . And they put that person in the category of probably voting for the president if they answer the friends and neighbors are voting for the president. What you think about that strategy . Guest there are a lot of different strategies. One thing i have done since i polling ande caller online polling is to compare. It is completely anonymous. They are not talking to a human being. The idea is the online sample, theres no downside to being honest. Theres not much difference between the live callers and the online sample, but we do use different techniques. Hownt use that question do your neighbors field but i do try to match up other questions, because we can see how people respond to policy know the that we president favors, for example, with, do you support the president . In boonville, North Carolina. , i live in watauga aunty, which i believe is blue county. Here in the mountains, a blue county. My brothers and sisters are back toward the eastern part, alyssa but city, and elizabeth city, North Carolina. Here is about the black vote. I know my brothers have switched from the Democrat Party to the Republican Party for many reasons, but just for the simple we prefer to have opportunity but myes or question is on the polling, i have never been polled before and i dont have a home phone. I just have a cell phone. Do you all call cell phones . How does that work . I keep seeing on the news white folks are switching, suburban women are switching to the Democrat Party because of, you know, i dont agree somewhat but im juststyle, curious about how big of a role that is going to play. Cunningham and tillis race, how is that going to play with the new revelation about the democrat, cunningham, you know what i mean . Yes, a lot of interesting questions. I will answer the method question first. Yes, we do call cell phones. 70 of our calls are cell phones. We reduced our landline calls. A lot of people do not have them. The black voters in the state, we know the black vote in the state is very significant. Over 20 of the electorate is black. Particularly key areas let me point to one county in North Carolina which i am watching from now until election day, nash county. It is in the eastern part of the state, what is known as the black belt. A high number of black voters live in nash county. Interesting is that county supported president obama twice and in 2016 went for President Trump. It really points out what the caller talked about which is the black vote is not monolithic. As i watch that county i really want to see how that county is forng, if that county goes President Trump again, President Trump has a good chance of carrying the state. If it goes to joe biden, that would be a good thing for the democrats. It is kind of a bellwether county. If suburban women yes, we have seen a big shift from 2016 to 2020. Michael indicates suburban women have trended toward democratic candidate. Mike polling indicates suburban women have trended toward democratic candidate. Candidates. Host do you support the president caller no, i support joe biden. Host supporting the former Vice President. Caller excuse me . Host i corrected. Supporting the bidenharris ticket. They are talking about hunter biden. They need to talk about President Trumps kids. On top of that they talk about trump being a racist. They showed a picture of trumps mother and father with the ku klux klan. He is prejudiced and he is the antichrist. Trump is in antichrist. Host all right, sharing the opinion in North Carolina. What about seniors in North Carolina . Guest North Carolina is a place where a lot of seniors retire. Military in the state, a good number of them, as low as people in the Mountain Area and along the coast that have come there. Senior population is extremely important. Joe biden has a slight advantage among seniors, which is very different from 2016. Been hitolina has pretty hard by the coronavirus, thaty polling indicates the seniors have switched and support joe biden and now have to attribute that to the president s response to coronavirus. Host what about the female vote in North Carolina . Will it be important . Females make up 54 of the electorate, they have turned out at a higher rate than men for many election cycles. We expect women to be a majority. Again, the gender gap that i ,now a lot of people talk about they are trending democratic for their support. My polling as well as other showed that women as a group are supporting joe biden and men are supporting President Trump. Breaking that women support down is key. Suburban women is key. Collegeeducated women are trending toward joe biden. Black women, as the previous caller suggested, have been an important part of the electorate in North Carolina and many southern states. There are many different subgroups of women. Host supporting the president in utah. Caller hello. I have a question about polling technique. We are in our third round of novel coronavirus. Sars underne was president bush with a 3 death rate. The second was mars, the last , the last year of the Obama Biden Administration with a 35 death rate among the infected. Second tale of infection that was contained in the middle east, the Vice President and president obama did nothing to wee the United States are seeing a 1 death rate instead of 5 , but it could have been 50. The question has not been coming up in the mainstream media. To the polls look at questions that already exist in the media or do you look at these types of things and ask questions on the . Host professor . Guest thats a good question. I dont go that many years back to ask questions about how previous administrations respond. There are polling organizations that drill down on that. They dont tend to do election calls. Its a good question. I will talk about, at least in , voters, check attachment they put to the government response to the coronavirus in terms of their voting decisions. In North Carolina, both , arelicans and democrats saying that coronavirus are driving their decisions. The republicans are saying the president is better at dealing with the pandemic than the democrats, but it is an important issue in this election cycle. As to theivided response the federal government divided as to the response the State Government has made. When we talk about the governors race in North Carolina, the governor is in a much better position than his forcratic counterparts senate and president and a lot of it is the coronavirus response. Host what does the guest mean by online polling . What is the process . Guest ok, thats a great question. What we do is, there are Big Companies in the country that have people on their panels i will not mention the company we use but they have about 6. 6 million americans as part of their panel, including 400,000 north carolinians. To be part of surveys of all types, market research, political surveys, etc. We contract for them. We create the survey. We tell them the parameters of the type of people we want. We want registered voters and likely voters. Theet we administer survey to their panel of likely voters. 300,000 people are part of that survey. Its not like doing live caller sampling. Of those 7 Million People could get called by the survey. Its a different kind of sample and we acknowledge that. In sanford, North Carolina. Good morning. Caller good morning. What is is this going on with the Voter Suppression in North Carolina . Like the governor has been discussing in the news . What is going on with that situation . Importantis a very topic in North Carolina, as it is around the country. We have a lot of lawsuits. Absentee ballot systems, the Supreme Court yesterday made a howl determination as to late the ballots can come in. Restrict an attempt to the amount of time that the ballots can come in. That is one possible case of Voter Suppression. Case that pollr watchers are talking about North Carolina it could be anything from people from the respective campaigns being at the polls and being a presence that may turn people away from live voting. I have not seen much evidence of that in the last couple weeks, during the early voting period. We always talk about the length of the early voting period. This year we have a longer early than the last election cycle and more voting places. Some suppression techniques employed in the past do not seem to be affecting North Carolina turnout this year. Host lets go to sarah. Caller good morning. On the senate race, i am looking at the slurs they are talking about on Cal Cunningham. Is he the only one who has ever cheated on his wife and who knows if that is true or not . The other statement i would like to make is that there have been so many rumors we do not know about donald trump and all the cheating he did also. Who is without sin, let him cast the first stone. I would like to give a heads up to the caller from tennessee this morning, because joe biden inherit a very, very bad economy. Apparently people have forgotten. Gas prices were almost four dollars a gallon. You could barely make groceries because you had to put gas in your car. And the caller from warrington, i would like to give him a heads up, because donald trump could very well be the antichrist. Remember, he already warns you when he told that story about being the snake that bit the told he said, the snake the woman, you knew what i was when you picked me up, so we should not forget the past. If we forget the past, we are condemned to repeat it. Host thank you very much. Professor . Guest the issue of political scandals, it was not that many years ago we had a u. S. Senator who was a president ial hedidate, john edwards, and had his campaign rocked by marital infidelity and it really ended his political career. I think we are in a different environment. Part of it has to do with how much polarization we have in our society, not just North Carolina, but elsewhere. Who supported Cal Cunningham prior to allegations or at least admissions of his marital infidelity, are still supporting him. That was not the case with john edwards. We are an environment where people are saying, i would rather support my candidate, even if he has some some things in his personal life that i may disagree with because i so disagree with the opponent. I did polling after the allegations and after the allegations, his numbers went up. Caller i am supporting the president. You talk about the shy trump voters. I wonder if you could do a closet socialist poll. The president says all of these things about the socialists. He gives up his huge check to everybody, just handed out, everybody gets 1200, then he goes and darts all of these trade wars and given all of these starts all of these trade wars and giving all of these handouts and goes to the walter reed hospital, getting the free medication from them, taxpayer medication. This guy wants to take tiktok, tell a Foreign Company they have to be owned by the americans. And then he wants to build walls. Do you know who builds walls . Walls. Munists build host jason, why are you still supporting him . Caller because im definitely not going for the democrats. But im a little wary of this guy. He sounds like a socialist. Im wondering if theres a poll to see if he is a closet socialist. Host understood, understood. Professor . We look at young voters a lot because we believe that they more significant part of the electorate and in 2016 and they did support political policies that are leftleaning. Pollse done previous about support for medicare for all to replace the current insurance system and young voters in North Carolina strongly support policy positions like that. When you look at the electorate, whether it is North Carolina or , you see a wide range of views about what policy should be. We dont find that the president s policy positions have been all that popular, yet he remains relatively popular in North Carolina. Some of his decisions, for example, about a wall and that sort of thing have not been 100 popular even within republican circles, but his support has been fairly consistent. Host greenville, ohio. Caller yes. Host good morning. Caller good morning. Host go ahead. The question is, as far as hunter biden and this deal is going on with him i mean, whodnt you think a person had a laptop usually takes it with them as far as having it on a computer someplace . That you would have the hard drive out or what . I think this is a bunch of bull crap. We need to ask giuliani where this came from. Host goose creek, south carolina, supporting the former Vice President. Caller hello. Good morning. Yes, i support joe biden. I dont support trump. You can support somebody you dont respect. Womanizer, second of all hes wishywashy. One day he is going to do something. The next day he changes his mind. What really gets me is john mccain, the fact that he, you know, but john mccain down saying he was a hero just because he stayed in a prison camp for three or four years, whatever it was. That he was in a hero. Host character, doesnt matter in North Carolina . Guest again, the perception of character depends on where you are coming from. Again, the caller raises all kinds of questions about the president and we have seen for 4ars of questions raised years of questions raised, but for Republican Voters or trump voters, they overlook that. They themselves would live their lives the way the president has lived his, but they see that he bring Something Else to the table. Many of our rural North Carolina voters who have been strong supporters of the president from 2015 until now, when you raise questions about the president s truth telling, they say, he may not tell the truth he might not tell the truth the whole time, but we are really interested in his appointing of judges. We are interested in his tax cuts. The same is true for the other side, like i said about how cunningham. smocrats and cunningham supporters are overlooking the fact that he has marital fidelity issues. Host on election night, which counties are you watching and why . Guest i am looking at the overall turnout in major metropolitan areas because weve seen such growth in the triangle areas, the raleighdurham area, as well as the charlotte area, in the last four years. If we see extraordinarily high turnout in those areas of the state, thats almost that will overwhelm the rural parts of the state in terms of biden support. Nash county in the eastern part of the state, and one of your callers was from watauga county, and even though there are a lot of Democratic Leaders in the county, that is one of those counties that does not always go for democrats. I am watching for some Rural Counties and some early counties. Washington journal continues. Host over the past week on washington journal, we have been focusing on key battleground states with political reporters and analysts on the ground trying to get clues into what is good to happen in four days. Today, we are looking at North Carolina. Tomorrow, we will wrap up with arizona. Tim boyum is the host of capital tonight and the