Democrat Cal Cunningham still leads in North Carolina Senate race despite affair allegations

Democratic U.S. Senate candidate for North Carolina Cal Cunningham has not been hurt by multiple allegations of extramarital affairs in recent weeks, and has even expanded his lead against incumbent Sen. Thom Tillis (R), according to a recent poll.

What are the details?

Newsweek reported a "Monmouth University poll released Tuesday finds Cunningham with a 48 percent to 44 percent lead over Tillis among registered voters," however, the outlet noted that the Democrat's "lead is within the poll's margin of error of 4.4 percent."

According to The Week, the accusations of infidelity against Cunningham — a married father of two children — may have pushed women and seniors toward favoring his opponent, but male voters showed an increase in support for Tillis' challenger.

The outlet broke down the recent shifts in polling for the race, reporting:

In the previous poll, Cunningham was up seven, but that jumped to a 10-point advantage in the iteration released Monday. The growing margin is largely thanks to men and younger voters, who have enhanced their support for the challenger. For example, Cunningham went from trailing Tillis by 11 among all men in September, to up two in October. Meanwhile, women and senior voters did shift more to Tillis in the wake of the scandal. But, overall, it does not appear to have drastically altered the state of the race.

Less than two weeks ago, Cunningham admitted to the authenticity of leaked sexually-charged texts between himself and a married California public relations strategist named Arlene Guzman Todd.

Todd later told the Associated Press that the relationship was physically intimate. Meanwhile, National File — the outlet that broke the initial story of the sexting scandal — reported allegations that Cunningham had been involved in an extramarital affair with another unnamed woman since 2012.

Cunningham has refused to address the issue in the media, beyond saying that he has apologized for the pain he has caused his family and taken responsibility. Following the allegations against his opponent, Tillis released a political ad while arguing that "Cunningham's candidacy is riddled with hypocrisy."

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