Obama, Romney tied in N.C., poll says

The debate over whether North Carolina is a presidential swing state ratchets up today with a new poll showing the race a dead heat.

Many pundits consider North Carolina to be clearly leaning toward Republican Mitt Romney. The New York Times lists it that way, not including the state among its nine "tossup" states. The Washington Post agrees.

We ran a piece by longtime N.C. political analyst John Davis on our editorial page Sunday in which he argues the state is Romney's to lose. "The lack of strong Democratic leaders in North Carolina gives the Obama camp no other choice but to begin to discreetly redirect the campaign's North Carolina resources to greener pastures," Davis said.

The folks at Public Policy Polling in Raleigh, though, have evidence that suggests they're all wrong. PPP released a new poll today that shows President Obama up 47-46 in North Carolina, a statistical tie. Obama and Romney have been within three points of each other in North Carolina in 21 of the 22 polls PPP has done since November 2010. "The state's about as much of a toss up as it could possibly be," said director Tom Jensen.

Obama won North Carolina by just 14,000 votes in 2008, becoming the first Democrat to win the state in 32 years.

We'd still be surprised if Obama wins North Carolina. Everything went just right for him in 2008 and he barely won here. At the same time, PPP has a solid predictive record, so the race in North Carolina may be tighter than it feels.

Details on the latest poll, which includes presidential polling in Virginia, can be found at PPP's website: http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2012/07/obama-holding-serve-in-the-upper-south.html

-- Posted by Taylor Batten