Polling Firm that Said Hillary Would Win NC in 2016 Says Biden, Sanders Lead Trump

The “progressive” polling firm whose last 2016 poll in North Carolina said Hillary Clinton was leading Donald Trump in the state by two points released a poll last week that claims both Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders are currently leading Trump in the Tar Heel State.

PPP Polling released its final 2016 presidential race poll for North Carolina, conducted between October 31 and November 1, on November 3. The poll showed Hillary Clinton was leading Donald Trump by two points, 49 percent to 47 percent.

The actual election results on November 8, 2016, less than a week later, were quite different than that final PPP Poll. President Trump handily beat Hillary Clinton in North Carolina by four points, 50 percent to 46 percent.

In a new PPP Poll conducted between January 4 and January 7, PPP now says former Vice President Joe Biden leads President Trump in North Carolina by five points, 49 percent to 44 percent. That same poll claims that Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) leads President Trump by three points, 47 percent to 44 percent. It also says Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) is tied with Trump, 46 percent to 46 percent, as is Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), 45 percent to 45 percent. Trump leads former Rep. Francis “Beto” O’Rourke (D-TX) and Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ).

The poll of 750 registered voters has a margin of error of 3.6 percent.

Both the October 24, 2016 PPP Poll showing Hillary Clinton leading President Trump by three points, and the January 2019 PPP Poll showing Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders leading President Trump contained claims that Trump is unpopular in North Carolina.

“Donald Trump’s not very popular in North Carolina,” Dean Debnam, president of PPP, said in a statement released along with the results of the January 2019 poll.

“After winning the state by four points in 2016 he looks like even money at best for 2020 in the state, at least at this early stage,” he added.

That sentiment is very similar to the one he expressed more than two years earlier.

“Hillary Clinton’s taken a small lead in North Carolina,” Debnam said in a release of the results of an August 2016 poll that showed her with a small two point lead over Trump.

“That has more to do with Donald Trump than it does with her- every time he opens his mouth he just keeps getting even more and more unpopular than he already was,” he concluded at the time.