Bush leads Kerry in N.C. poll

President Bush leads Democratic challenger John Kerry by 6 percentage points in North Carolina in a survey taken this week, though voters remain split over the Iraq war and how Bush is handling it.

Bush was the choice of 51 percent of voters and Kerry the choice of 45 percent in the Research 2000 poll conducted for The News & Observer, WUNC radio and WRAL-TV. The poll, taken Sunday through Tuesday, has a margin of error of 4 percentage points.

In the Research 2000 poll last month, Bush led 50 percent to 44 percent.

“The ‘Massachusetts liberal’ thing is probably a stigma that hurts Kerry in North Carolina,” said Del Ali, Research 2000 president.

A majority of those polled, 56 percent, had a favorable impression of John Edwards, Kerry’s running mate and North Carolina’s senior senator. But that hasn’t helped the ticket much. “His influence in putting Kerry in the ballgame really has been minimal,” Ali said.

North Carolinians’ opinions of the war in Iraq remain divided. Slightly more people, 48 percent versus 46 percent, said “the situation in Iraq” was not worth a war.

Forty-seven percent said the war with Iraq has made the United States safer, but 45 percent said it has made the country less safe.

The Raleigh News & Observer