NC President

John McCain 48
Barack Obama 44
Bob Barr 4

The race in North Carolina is pretty much where it was before the two party conventions- close but with a definite advantage for McCain. A concern for Obama rising out of this poll is that undecided whites have gone from 10% three weeks ago to just 3% now, and two thirds of them have gone into the McCain column.

PPP found a similar trend in a recent Florida poll, and Obama will obviously have difficulty winning in the swing states if the voters who have been reporting as undecided all summer start heading toward the Republicans across the board. At the same time most pollsters are taking a somewhat conservative approach to their turnout projections, and if Barack Obama's ground game ends up being everything it's been cracked up to be there could be some election night surprises.

McCain leads 61-32 with white voters. 35% is probably the lowest share of the white vote Obama could receive and still hope to win the state. Obama's up 85-6 with black voters.

The impact of running mate selections on the race in North Carolina is more complicated than it has been in some other places. Overall 42% of voters say the Palin choice makes them more likely to vote for McCain while 32% say Joe Biden on the ticket helps Obama.

That news is not as good for the Republicans as it might sound though- 75% of Republicans are enthusiastic about the Palin choice while just 43% of Democrats are happy with the Biden choice. Those Republicans may now be more excited about voting for McCain than they were before, but their votes still count the same.

Biden, on the other hand, polls better with independents than Palin. 36% of them say his place on the ticket makes them more likely to choose Obama compared to 20% who say it's a negative. Palin generates slightly more 'more likely to vote for' responses (37%) from independents, but also gets nearly twice as many 'less likely to vote for' respondents (35%) from that same group.

Here's the bottom line in North Carolina: Barack Obama will not win the state by convincing folks who voted for George W. Bush to cross over and vote for him this time. His chances are almost completely predicated on how many new voters he can bring in. He won the primary that way, and he'll have to do the same in the general.

Full results here