The most recent poll is out for North Carolina’s 8th Congressional District race and it shows Larry Kissell leading Robin Hayes in a pure unadulterated head-to-head match up. The poll, conducted by Anzalone Liszt, shows Kissell at 45% and Hayes at 43%.
Kissell's National Media Director, Ben Chao, of FRCR, Inc. told a large group of Kissell supporters this morning that when looking at congressional races:
Larry Kissell is the only challenger in America who is leading the incumbent.
As James and Tom Jensen predicted, Hayes must be receiving some terrible numbers from his own internal polls. Otherwise, he would never have gone so negative, so early. His first attack ad was running during the time this poll was in the field. As bad as that ad was, it had to hurt Larry’s numbers a little bit and yet, Larry Kissell is still in the lead.
In 2006, Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post said that Kissell “captured lightning in a bottle,” in 2006. It looks like lightning is going to strike twice.
North Carolina's 8th Congressional district continues to trend Democratic. Democrats now have a 17-point advantage over Republicans on the generic ballot (49% Democrat / 32% Republican), a total gain of eight points for Democrats since May 2007 (42% Democratic / 33% Republican).
As you can see from the numbers, the district is trending Democratic, much more so than it did in 2006. This spells trouble for both Robin Hayes and John McCain since many of those new Democrats are not George Bush Democrats.
In a head-to-head match up between John McCain and Barack Obama in this previously conservative district that voted twice for George Bush, Barack Obama wins big, with those polled going 50% for Obama and only 37% for McCain.
I think Larry Kissell just found his 330 new Democratic voters. Let’s make sure he reaches every single one of them.
Polling Memorandum