United Liberty

A new poll from Public Policy Polling finds President Barack Obama in trouble in North Carolina, a state that he won by a small margin in 2008. But much like like national polls reflect, Obama’s potential GOP rivals are still running mostly even with him:

Barack Obama’s approval rating in North Carolina has fallen to 43%, with 53% of voters disapproving of him.  That’s the lowest PPP has found in monthly polling of the state since the weekend before last year’s general election when Democrats were annihilated at the polls.

Obama’s got 2 big problems: independents and a loss of support with his party base.  Only 31% of independent voters think he’s doing a good job to 62% who disapprove. He was at an already bad 38/56 a month ago and things have only gotten worse for him.  Obama’s other issue is that he’s losing support from Democrats.  He was at 79/16 and now he’s down to 75/20.

Bad numbers for sure, not a position any incumbent wants to be in. Public Policy Polling weighed Obama against five GOP contenders (Bachmann, Gingrich, Palin, Perry and Romney), but to keep this short, I’m only showing the frontrunners, Rick Perry and Mitt Romney. As you can see, it would be a very close race; at least on the surface:

Barack Obama v. Rick Perry

• Obama: 46%
• Perry: 46%
• Undecided: 8%

Barack Obama v. Mitt Romney

• Obama: 45%
• Romney: 44%
• Undecided: 11%

Public Policy Polling notes (emphasis mine):

Only 5% of the undecideds in the Perry match up approve of him to 83% who disapprove and on the generic legislative ballot they support Republicans by a 57-21 margin.  It’s a similar story in the match up with Romney.  The undecideds there disapprove of Obama by a 10/81 spread and support a generic Republican 62-14.  When those folks come off the fence they’re going to be voting GOP which means if the election was today Obama would lose the state.

Given its 15 electoral votes, North Carolina, along with several other states that Obama took in 2008, is a must win state for the GOP nominee in 2012.