Romney Up Big in North Carolina

Barack Obama narrowly carried North Carolina in 2008, thanks mostly to his hope and change message and a massive voter registration/get out the vote effort that brought about 300,000 new voters to the polls to vote for him. But even with all of that, Obama only won the state’s 15 electoral votes by about 13,000 votes. 2012 was always going to be narrow, at best, for him.

The second time around is not looking as close, according to Rasmussen. A new poll out today has Mitt Romney leading in North Carolina, by a lot.

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Voters in the Tar Heel State shows the putative Republican nominee earning 51% of the vote to Obama’s 43%. Two percent (2%) like some other candidate, and four percent (4%) are undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

That’s a big change from last month when Romney posted a narrow 46% to 44% lead over the president in Rasmussen Reports’ first survey of the race in North Carolina.  Democrats have signaled North Carolina’s importance as a key swing state by deciding to hold their national convention in Charlotte this summer.

Departing Gov. Bev Purdue and other liberals are likely to blame the change on President Obama’s gay marriage stance, and last week’s announcement probably is playing a role in Romney’s surge. But also likely playing a role is the contempt the left is heaping on the Tar Heel State. Purdue herself managed a minor feat when she lashed out at the North Carolina Amendment 1 vote by insulting both her state and the good people of Mississippi.

The hard left has reacted to North Carolina’s approval of Amendment 1, by a lopsided 61-39 vote, not by trying to understand it or re-work their own powers of persuasion, but by calling for boycotts of the state and for the DNC to move its convention elsewhere. The hard left never seems to learn that insults and bullying do not win over voters.

Probably even more important than the insults and threats, though, is North Carolina’s unemployment rate. It stands at 9.9% —  nearly two full points above the official national average. Obama’s heavy Big Labor policies also run counter to North Carolina’s business friendly, right-to-work laws.