There's some other interesting stuff in there about the North Carolina primaries too (though the high number of undecideds in the poll reduces its usefulness).
Preference by political philosophy:
The proportions in which voters go to Obama or Clinton is pretty much the same across the board from "Somewhat liberal" to "Very conservative" voters. The only exception are the "Very liberal" voters, who go overwhelmingly for Obama.
The most striking thing here is something else, however. There are about as many respondents here who call themselves conservative as liberal -- and the more conservative the respondent is, the higher the number of undecideds.
The number of undecideds goes up from 16% among "Somewhat liberal" voters to 21% among "Moderates," 39% among "Somewhat conservative" voters, and a whopping 54% among those who are "Very conservative" . And that latter category is still 12% of the respondents. (The respondents are 93% Democrats and 7% unaffiliated.)
Bad news for the general elections, no matter who the candidate? Seems like a lot of conservative Democrats ready to be picked up by McCain...
Preference by voting pattern:
A question about political voter patterns seems to indicate that Hillary is the more electable general elections candidate in this state.
Two-thirds of the respondents said they always voted Dem or voted Dem more often than not. But 17% said they voted for both parties equally and 9% said they voted more often for Republicans. And while Obama beats Hillary about 2:1 among those two-thirds of more or less habitual Dem voters, the floating voters actually prefer Hillary, by a small margin.
That's the opposite of the national pattern of course - normally Hillary does better among core Dems, while Obama does better among Indies and cross-over Democrats. So is it illogical? Keep in mind though: these are
not actually Independents or cross-over Republicans; they are Democrats who often vote for Republican candidates. Not the same thing. It could well be that nationally, too, Obama does well among Republicans and Indies who often cross over to the Democrats and badly among Democrats who often cross over to the Republicans - probably very different demographics.
Could it be about race? Blacks make up about 28% of the sample here, and I assume they are overrepresented in the 28% of voters who say they always vote Dem and the 39% who say they vote Dem more often than not. The floating voters here are probably overwhelmingly whites, and Southern whites have shown to be reliably pro-Hillary throughout the primary season.
Indeed, among all whites in the sample, Hillary also edges out Obama, though a full third of them say they're undecided (which in turn probably implies a lack of identification with either candidate, see the bullet point above). Among blacks, on the other hand, Obama leads 7:1.
