A new Raleigh-based polling firm founded by Republican operatives announced last week that Democrat Kay Hagan is leading her top Republican challengers. The pollster, American Insights, shows Hagan leading state House Speaker Thom Tillis 38 to 35 percent; Mark Harris 39 to 35 percent; and Greg Brannon 38 to 36 percent. The pollster said this was the first time in 2014 that Hagan polled ahead of Tillis in any published survey. The margin of error is plus or minus 4 percent. According to Executive Director Matthew Faraci, American Insights plansRead More

Ninety percent of North Carolina’s registered voters say teacher pay should be increased, says a new nonprofit organization and a North Carolina pollster. Pollster American Insights of Raleigh says it surveyed 611 voters on behalf of BestSchoolsNC, which describes itself as a new nonpartisan organization “bringing parents, teachers, students, community leaders, and elected officials together to advocate for commonsense solutions that will make North Carolina’s schools the very best in the nation.” American Insights also is a new organization, operated former Republican political operatives. They recently found that Democratic Sen.Read More

An American Insights poll, taken earlier this month, of 611 registered North Carolina voters finds a tight GOP primary and close general election in the state’s US Senate race. (If you haven’t heard of American Insights, you’re not alone. The lefties at The Daily Kos are a bit perplexed, as well.) The survey, conducted February 11-15, found House speaker Thom Tillis leading the GOP primary field with 11 percent, followed by Mark Harris with 7 percent, Greg Brannon with 4 percent, and Heather Grant with 4 percent. A whopping 55Read More

NC-Sen: A firm we hadn’t previously heard of called American Insights has a quirky new North Carolina poll with tons of undecideds. The firm finds Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan edging all of her Republican challengers by similar margins, with a 38-35 lead over Thom Tillis; 39-35 over Mark Harris; and 38-36 over Greg Brannon. Spread-wise, those are actually slightly better results for Hagan than PPP’s recently seen, but the large number of voters without any preference makes this data less helpful. One interesting thing about this survey, though, is that American InsightsRead More

A new North Carolina-based polling firm has released its first survey of the upcoming reelection campaign of Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan that finds her holding a slight lead against her likely Republican challengers. American Insights, which is based in Raleigh, surveyed 611 registered voters in North Carolina between Feb. 11 and 15 for a poll with a margin of error of 4 percentage points. That poll found that Hagan, of Greensboro, holds leads within that margin of error over any of three potential Republican challengers: Thom Tillis, Mark Harris or Greg Brannon. Her margin was 2 points overRead More

Sen. Kay Hagan (D-NC) holds a very slight lead over all her possible challengers in the Republican primary, according to a new poll. The poll, from American Insights, however founded a high number of undecided voters. Against House Speaker Thom Tillis (R-NC), Hagan leads 38 percent to 35 percent. In a matchup with Rev. Mark Harris, Hagan leads 39 percent to 35 percent and against tea partier Greg Brannon Hagan gets 38 percent while Brannon gets just 36 percent. Read more…Read More