Early voting polls in North Carolina show Clinton, Democrats leading big

Democrats are surging to a big lead in North Carolina's early voting, a Public Policy Polling study found.

Among likely North Carolina voters who say they have already voted, 63 percent said they had cast their presidential ballots for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton — and only 37 percent had voted for Republican Donald Trump.

And if the poll is to be believed, Libertarian Gary Johnson isn't making much of an impact on the two-way race: Less than half a percent of early voters in the state say they voted for Johnson, which is about in line with the support of a third-party candidate in a normal year.

The polling average overall for the Tar Heel State shows Clinton up — but by a significantly smaller margin.

Clinton has 47.5 percent support in the state compared to Trump's 44.8 percent, according to Real Clear Politics' polling average. And PPP's latest poll showed Clinton with 47 percent, Trump at 44 percent and Johnson at 4 percent.

“It’s already clear that Democrats will go into Election Day with a substantial advantage in North Carolina,” Dean Debnam, president of Public Policy Polling, said in a statement. “It’s just going to be a question of whether Republicans can do well enough on the big day itself to overcome their deficit.”

Trump's drop comes at the same time as a modest decline in his favorability rating and a larger increase in Clinton's, PPP said.

When we polled North Carolina a month ago, each hopeful had an identical 40/55 favorability rating. Since then Clinton's net favorability has improved by 6 points from that -15 standing to now -9 with 43% of voters seeing her positively and 52% negatively. Even with all the revelations of the last month Trump has only gotten slightly more unpopular, going from that 40/55 standing to 39/56.