HPU Poll: Nearly Half of North Carolinians Approve of Governor, Majority Disapprove of President

HIGH POINT, N.C., April 6, 2023 – In a new High Point University Poll, North Carolinians gave Gov. Roy Cooper a job approval rating of 48%, while 29% said they disapprove and 23% did not offer an opinion either way.

These same respondents gave President Joe Biden a job approval rating of 33%. More than half (53%) of North Carolina residents said they disapprove of the job President Biden is doing.

The poll asked respondents their approval of a list of issues that President Biden has to deal with. Receiving more than one-third approval from North Carolinians were Biden’s handling of COVID-19 (41%), voting integrity (39%), education (38%), civil rights (38%), protecting democracy (38%), the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan (34%), and the war in Ukraine (33%). He gained less than one-third approval on his handling of climate change (32%), law enforcement (32%), school safety (32%), abortion (29%), taxes (28%), securing the U.S. southern border (28%), handling of classified documents (27%), gas prices (25%), inflation (21%), and his son Hunter Biden’s work (18%).

Almost three-quarters (71%) of North Carolinians said the country is on the wrong track, while 20% of those same respondents said the country is headed in the right direction. Only 10% did not offer an opinion either way.

When asked about how things were going in the U.S. Congress, about one-quarter (24%) of North Carolinians said they approved of the job Congress is doing. A majority (52%) said they disapproved of how Congress is doing its job. About another quarter (23%) did not offer an opinion.

The poll also asked North Carolinians whether they have favorable or unfavorable views about a list of people or things. A majority (54%) of those polled have a favorable view of community banks. Of other people or things, more than one-third of respondents had favorable views of Roy Cooper (46%), the United Nations (45%), NATO (44%), the World Health Organization (43%), the U.S. Supreme Court (38%), the North Carolina General Assembly (38%), Joe Biden (37%), the Federal Reserve system (36%), TikTok (34%), and the European Union (33%).

A half or more of North Carolinians have an unfavorable view of the U.S. Congress (54%), big banks (50%), and cryptocurrency (50%). Respondents were split on the International Criminal Court with 26% having a favorable view, 35% having an unfavorable view, and 39% expressing no opinion at all.

The poll asked about views of two countries, Russia and China. Russia had a favorability rating of just 9% with about than three-quarters (74%) of North Carolinians viewing it unfavorably. China had a favorability rating of 13% with about two-thirds (67%) of North Carolinians viewing it unfavorably.

“This poll examined North Carolina attitudes toward some institutions and businesses that are in the news,” says Dr. Martin Kifer, chair of HPU’s Department of Political Science and director of the HPU Poll. “North Carolinians say they have more favorable views of community banks than big banks or cryptocurrency. And the respondents to this poll prefer NATO and the United Nations to the International Criminal Court – though a lot of people are unsure about it or have not heard of it.”

NC residents – Country Direction (March 2023)

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

Right direction – 20%

Wrong track – 71%

Unsure – 10%

NC residents – Presidential Approval (March 2023)

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

Approve – 33%

Disapprove – 53%

Unsure – 14%

NC residents – Presidential Issue Approval (March 2023)

NC residents – Governor Approval (March 2023)

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

Approve – 48%

Disapprove – 29%

Unsure – 23%

NC residents – Approval of the U.S. Congress (March 2023)

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

Approve – 24%

Disapprove – 52%

Unsure – 23%

 NC residents – Favorability (March 2023)

The most recent HPU Poll of 1,004 respondents was fielded by the High Point University Survey Research Center on Mar. 23 through Mar. 28, as an online survey using a panel of respondents recruited and maintained by Dynata. Dynata sent invitations to its panel of N.C. respondents and the SRC collected responses on its Qualtrics platform. The SRC did all data analysis. The online sample is from a panel of respondents, and 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 3.2 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 1.1 (based on the weighting). The data is weighed toward population estimates for age, gender, race/ethnicity and education 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.

Further results and methodological details from the most recent survey and past surveys can be found at the Survey Research Center website. 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.

You can follow the HPU Poll on Twitter.

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.