North State Journal: “Recent opinion polls in North Carolina show voters are more likely to vote for Republican candidates than Democrats for two state Supreme Court seats this year.
A poll of likely voters from Sept. 24-26 was conducted by the national polling group Cygnal on behalf of the Civitas Institute and John Locke Foundation.
Republican Richard Dietz leads Democrat Lucy Inman 44.5% to 40.5%. Both Dietz and Inman currently sit on the N.C. Court of Appeals and are running for Seat 3 on the state’s high court. That seat is being vacated by Associate Justice Robin Hudson, who faces mandatory retirement.
Inman — along with former Chief Justice Cheri Beasley, who is now running for U.S. Senate — was criticized for filming campaign ads in judicial chambers while courts around the state were shut down due to COVID-19 restrictions imposed by Beasley in 2020.
Similarly, 38.9% said they’d vote for Seat 5 incumbent Democrat Sam Ervin IV while 46% would vote for Republican Trey Allen.
Allen is the general counsel for the Administrative Office of the Courts. Ervin was elected in 2014 and previously served as a state appellate judge.
A SurveyUSA poll of North Carolina registered voters conducted on behalf of WRAL News also shows the Republicans with leads over Democrats in the N.C. Supreme Court races. That poll has Dietz up 37% to Inman’s 32%, and Allen with 39% to Ervin’s 37%.
The SurveyUSA poll has an unusually elevated level of undecided voters in its results; 31% and 24%, respectively. The Cygnal poll had just 15% of voters responding as undecided in both races. “