State Senator Fred Smith has taken the lead in the Republican gubernatorial primary after a recent flurry of campaign activity, according to a Public Policy Polling survey taken earlier this week. With the support of 25% of likely Republican primary voters he overtakes Salisbury lawyer Bill Graham, who had led every previous monthly poll in 2007. Graham earned 17% and was followed by former Supreme Court Justice Bob Orr with 7%.

PPP is also proud to release the first public poll for the now competitive Democratic primary for the US Senate. State Senator Kay Hagan has 24% support, followed by Jim Neal with 13% and John Ross Hendrix with 8%. In the Democratic Presidential Primary, Hillary Clinton and John Edwards are knotted with 30%. Barack Obama's recent trip to the state did not lead to an immediate increase in his support, as he continued to lag with 21%.

Fred Thompson's lead in the Republican presidential race has narrowed from 11 percentage points last month to just five in this poll. Twenty-four percent of Republican primary voters chose Thompson, 19% chose Rudy Giuliani, while Mitt Romney and John
McCain lagged behind with 10 and 8% respectively.

The tracking polls also show Bev Perdue continuing her lead in the Democratic Gubernatorial primary and June Atkinson with a double digit lead for Superintendent of Public instruction. Other races polled include the Democratic and Republican primaries
for State Treasurer and the Democratic primary for Lieutenant Governor.

PPP surveyed 679 likely Democratic primary voters and 767 likely Republican primary voters on November 5. The surveys have margins of error of ± 3.8% and ± 3.5% respectively. Other factors, such as refusal to be interviewed and weighting, may introduce additional error that is more difficult to quantify. Complete results are attached and can be found at www.publicpolicypolling.com. These include issue priorities for both parties, and crosstabs breaking down the results by gender, race, age and region.

The report above is from Public Policy Polling and can be found online HERE.