Poll: Rep. Ted Budd Leads Democrat Opponent by 2.5 Percent in North Carolina U.S. Senate Race

Rep. Ted Budd (R-NC) holds a 2.5 percent lead over Democrat candidate Cheri Beasley in the general election race for U.S. Senate in North Carolina, a Trafalgar Group poll shows.

The poll asked likely general election voters, “If the election for U.S. Senate were held today, for whom would you vote?”

Budd, endorsed by former President Donald J. Trump in the Republican primary, drew 47.6 percent of the response, while 45.1 percent said they would cast a ballot for Beasley, a former chief justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court. Libertarian candidate Shannon Bray garnered just 2 percent of the response, as another 2.1 percent said they would vote for another candidate, and 3.2 percent remained “undecided.” The general election winner will replace outgoing Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC):

Of those sampled in the poll, 36.6 percent were Democrats, 33.6 percent were Republicans, and those belonging to another party or had no party affiliation comprised the remaining 29.8 percent. Additionally, women made up 54.9 percent of poll participants, while 45.1 percent of respondents were men. According to the 2020 Census, women account for 51.1 percent of the state’s population.

The Trafalgar poll follows a Cygnal poll released by the John Lock Foundation on June 23, which showed Budd with nearly a five-point lead over Beasley among likely general election voters, at 45 percent and 40.3 percent, respectively. While just 3.2 percent of likely general election voters were undecided in the Trafalgar Group poll, the Cygnal poll showed a larger portion of the likely voters (11 percent) had yet to decide on a candidate.

Budd, a three-term U.S. representative for North Carolina’s 13th Congressional District, cruised to a primary win over the rest of the field – including former Gov. Pat McCrory (R-NC) and former Rep. Mark Walker (R-NC) – as Budd secured 58.1 percent of the vote, per Associated Press election results published by the New York Times. Beasley took home 81.1 percent of the vote in the Democrat primary. Of note, the Republican primary had a greater participation level than the Democrat primary by more than 100,000 votes.

The Trafalgar Group poll sampled 1,068 likely general election voters between June 29 and July 1 and has a margin of error of 2.9 percent with a confidence level of 95 percent.