HIGH POINT, N.C., Sept. 25, 2019 – A new High Point University Poll finds that North Carolinians give President Donald Trump a job approval rating of 42%. Half (50%) of North Carolina residents said they disapprove of the job Trump is doing as president.

North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper has an approval rating of 43%, while 30% of poll participants disapprove of the way he is handling his job. Twenty-seven percent of these same North Carolina residents did not offer an opinion of Cooper’s job performance.

U.S. Senator Thom Tillis has a 27% approval rating, and 38% of North Carolina residents said they disapprove of the way he is handling his job as senator. Slightly more than one-third (35%) do not offer a view one way or another.

Only 19% of North Carolinians approved of how U.S. Congress in general is doing its job, while 61% disapprove and 19% offer no view either way.

“The most recent HPU Poll indicates that North Carolinians are split on their approval of the president, while close to one-third don’t offer an opinion on the states’ other elected positions,” says Brian McDonald, associate director of the HPU Poll and adjunct instructor. “We will continue to track the public’s reactions to our elected officials as they seek reelection in 2020.”

All adults – Presidential Job Approval (September 2019)

Do you approve or disapprove of the way that Donald Trump is handling his job as president?

Approve – 42%

Disapprove – 50%

Don’t know/refused – 8%

(All adult (North Carolina resident) phone and online sample, surveyed September 13 – 19, 2019, n = 1030 and credibility interval of +/- 3.7%)

All adults – Governor Roy Cooper Approval (September 2019)

Do you approve or disapprove of the way that Roy Cooper is handling his job as Governor?

Approve – 43%

Disapprove – 30%

Don’t know/refused – 27%

(All adult (North Carolina resident) phone and online sample, surveyed September 13 – 19, 2019, n = 1030 and credibility interval of +/- 3.7%)

All adults – U.S. Senator Thom Tillis Approval (September 2019)

Do you approve or disapprove of the way that Thom Tillis is handling his job as United States Senator?

Approve – 27%

Disapprove – 38%

Don’t know/refused – 35%

(All adult (North Carolina resident) phone and online sample, surveyed September 13 – 19, 2019, n = 1030 and credibility interval of +/- 3.7%)

All adults – U.S. Congress Approval (September 2019)

Do you approve or disapprove of the way the U.S. Congress is handling its job?

Approve – 19%

Disapprove – 61%

Don’t know/refused – 19%

(All adult (North Carolina resident) phone and online sample, surveyed September 13 – 19, 2019, n = 1030 and credibility interval of +/- 3.7%)

The most recent HPU Poll was fielded by live interviewers at the High Point University Survey Research Center calling on Sept. 13 – 19, 2019 and an online survey fielded at the same time. The responses from a sample of all North Carolina counties came from 1030 adults interviewed online (802 respondents) as well as landline or cellular telephones (228 respondents). The Survey Research Center contracted with Dynata, formerly Research Now SSI: https://www.dynata.com/ to acquire these samples, and fielded the online survey using its Qualtrics platform. This is a combined sample of live phone interviews and online interviews. The online sampling is from a panel of respondents, so their participation does not adhere to usual assumptions associated with random selection. Therefore, it is not appropriate to assign a classical margin of sampling error for the results. In this case, the SRC provides a credibility interval of plus or minus 3.7 percentage points to account for a traditional 95% confidence interval for the estimates (plus or minus 3.1 percentage points) and a design effect of 1.2 (based on the weighting). The data is weighted toward population estimates for age, gender, race, and education level based on U.S. Census numbers for North Carolina. Factors such as question wording and other methodological choices in conducting survey research can introduce additional error into the findings of opinion polls. Details from this survey are available at http://www.highpoint.edu/src/files/2019/09/66memoA.pdf.

Further results and methodological details from the most recent survey and past studies can be found at the Survey Research Center website at http://www.highpoint.edu/src/. The materials online include past press releases as well as memos summarizing the findings (including approval ratings) for each poll since 2010.

The HPU Poll reports methodological details in accordance with the standards set out by AAPOR’s Transparency Initiative, and the HPU Survey Research Center is a Charter Member of the Initiative. For more information, see

http://transparency.aapor.org/index.php/transparency.

You can follow the HPU Poll on Twitter at https://twitter.com/HPUSurveyCenter.

Dr. Martin Kifer, chair and associate professor of political science, serves as the director of the HPU Poll and Brian McDonald is the associate director of the HPU Poll.