HPU Poll: Presidential Approval at 38%, Governor Approval at 45% in North Carolina

HIGH POINT, N.C., Sept. 28, 2021 – In a new High Point University Poll, North Carolinians gave President Joe Biden a job approval rating of 38%. A little less than half (48%) of North Carolina residents said they disapprove of the job President Biden is doing.

These same respondents gave Gov. Roy Cooper a job approval rating of 45%, while 32% said they disapprove and 23% did not offer an opinion either way.

More than half (60%) of North Carolinians said the country is off on the wrong track. Approximately one-third (28%) of those same residents said the country is headed in the right direction.

On specific issues, North Carolinians expressed some differing opinions about President Biden’s performance. Of the issues tested, the highest percentage of respondents (42%) approved of the job Biden is doing at handling COVID-19 while the lowest percentage of North Carolinians approved of the situation in Afghanistan (25%). Concerning other issues, 38% approved of Biden’s handling of health care, while smaller proportions approved of his handling of the economy (34%) and his duties as commander in chief of the military (33%).

“The most recent HPU Poll asked North Carolinians to rate President Biden on his handling of several issues,” said Brian McDonald, associate director of the HPU Poll and adjunct graduate school instructor. “Respondents to our survey are more or less split on Biden’s handling of COVID-19 and health care, while a majority disapprove of his handling of the economy, duties as commander in chief and Afghanistan.”

NC residents – Country Direction (September 2021)

Do you think things in this country are generally going in the right direction or do you feel things have gotten pretty seriously off on the wrong track?

Right direction – 28%

Wrong track – 60%

Don’t know/refused – 12%

(Telephone and online interviews with North Carolina residents, surveyed Sept. 10 – 24, n = 876 and credibility interval is +/- 3.6%)

NC residents – Presidential Job Approval (September 2021)

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

Approve – 38%

Disapprove – 48%

Don’t know/refused – 14%

(Telephone and online interviews with North Carolina residents, surveyed Sept. 10 – 24, n = 876 and credibility interval is +/- 3.6%)

NC Resident – Presidential Approval on Selected Issues (September 2021)

On each of these issues, would you say you approve or disapprove of how Joe Biden is handling them? [ISSUES PRESENTED IN RANDOMIZED ORDER]

(Telephone and online interviews with North Carolina residents, surveyed Sept. 10 – 24, n = 876 and credibility interval is +/- 3.6%)

NC residents – NC Governor Approval (September 2021)

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

Approve – 45%

Disapprove – 32%

Don’t know/refused – 23%

(Telephone and online interviews with North Carolina residents, surveyed Sept. 10 – 24, n = 876 and credibility interval is +/- 3.6%)

The most recent HPU Poll was fielded by live interviewers at the High Point University Survey Research Center calling on Sept. 10 through Sept. 24, 2021, and an online survey was fielded at the same time. The responses from a sample of all North Carolina counties came from 876 adults interviewed online (772 respondents) as well as landline or cellular telephones (104 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 the SRC’s 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 classic margin of sampling error for the results. In this case, the SRC provides a credibility interval of plus or minus 3.6 percentage points to account for a traditional 95% confidence interval for the estimates (plus or minus 3.3 percentage points) and a design effect of 1.1 (based on the weighting). The data is weighted toward population estimates for age, gender, and race/ethnicity-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 errors into the findings of opinion polls. Details from this survey are available at https://www.highpoint.edu/src/files/2021/09/82memoA.pdf.

Further results and methodological details from the most recent survey and past studies can be found at the Survey Research Center website at https://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 https://www.aapor.org/Transparency_Initiative.htm.

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.