HB 2 is widely supported by North Carolinians.

Just as the estimated 4,000 who turned out to support it Monday.

HB 2 is widely supported, that is, unless you ask Public Policy Polling (PPP). The same PPP who got their poll on Amendment One WAY wrong.

That PPP poll showed support of Amendment One as passing by only a 14 point margin. Amendment One passed 61% in favor to 38% opposed, which is a 23% margin.

Here’s BlueprintNC partner, Progress NC Action hyping the latest PPP poll:

NEW POLLING ON #HB2 should give @PatMcCroryNC some serious heartburn. https://t.co/cY0FTQKcBy #cltnews #clt #avlnews #avl #ncpol #ncga #ilm

— Progress NC Action (@ProgressNow_NC) April 25, 2016

PPP characterizes their poll results as showing HB 2 as “deeply unpopular“.

Meanwhile another poll from Civitas shows people overwhelmingly think the Charlotte ordinance was dangerous. PPP’s poll didn’t ask a single question about the Charlotte ordinance.

So, here’s the funny thing about that PPP poll: I took it.

They called my home last Friday. I usually hang up on polls but I decided to take this one since HB 2 has been such a hot topic.

What’s interesting to note is that I did not know who the pollster was until I had completed the poll questions. PPP did not announce who they were until the very end. By the way, the poll was of 960 people.

When I do answer polls I never give my actual demographics and I suspect a large number of folks out there do the same.   PP asked the demographic questions – party affiliation, race, age, sex.

I was amused their question on sex only offered two options: “If you are a woman, press 1. If a man, press 2.”

Where was the ‘what do you identify as’ option?

So, as I said, I mess with pollsters regularly. So I answered I was a black male somewhere in the age of 25 and up and that I was an unaffiliated African-American.

Q19 of the poll denoted what Area Code the person was in. The three top area codes are all fairly liberal leaning.

Here is the breakout with the region and translation from the percentage of the people these area codes represent:

252  – 11% (Greenville) (105.6 people)
336  – 25% (Greensboro) (240 people)
704  – 18% (Charlotte) (172.8 people)
828 –  11% (Asheville) (105.6 people)
910  – 16% (Fayetteville) (153.6 people)
919 –  19% (Raleigh) (182.4 people)

This is the exact same set of area codes PPP used for their Amendment One poll, by the way.

Area code 336 had the most respondents. That’s Greensboro, which has a heavy Moral Monday presence and the area from which many of those arrested at the protest Monday are from.

704 is Charlotte, which is the city whose Ordinance  led to this whole mess. 919 is the Raleigh area.  That’s where I am.

Party affiliation was Democrat heavy with 40%, Republicans 33% and unaffiliated at 27%.
Those percentages figures translate to 384 Dem, 316.8 Rep, 259.2 Unaffiliated.

Now, bear in mind that for the last two years, the number of voters switching to unaffiliated has  increased in more than half of the one hundred counties in the state. A quick comparison between the last presidential election year of 2012 and the current one, 2016:

2012 D: 2,858,086 R:2,042,194  U: 1,703,934
2016 D: 2,651,083  R: 2,004,323 U: 1,888,230
Diff:  D: -207,003   R: -37,871        U: +184,296

Perhaps PPP’s sampling should include more unaffiliated voters or at least a closer balance between the three?

The majority of respondents described themselves as being politically “moderate” (30%). Yet, when you look at the break out of the HB2 ideology questions (p. 8), it’s the “very liberal and liberal” who overwhelmingly complaining about HB2.

The same holds when broken out by party;  Democrats siding with the Liberal ideology overwhelmingly hating HB 2 (p.12), yet 30% of respondents said they were “moderate”.

Mmkay.