A Civitas Institute poll shows NC will likely be a toss up between the Republican candidate and Hillary Clinton in 2016.  Romney beat Obama in the state in 2012 50% to 48%.

First the party nominations:

For the Republicans, Jeb Bush holds a big lead followed by a tight group in Christie, Paul, Rubio, and Perry:

Jeb Bush        16%
Chris Christie 9%
Rand Paul      9%
Marco Rubio 8%
Rick Perry     7%
Bobby Jindal  3%
Scott Walker 3%
Rick Santorum 3%

For the Democrats, Hillary Clinton has the lead with Biden and Warren fighting for a far away second
Hillary Clinton      40%
Elizabeth Warren  12%
Joe Biden             9%
Andrew Cuomo   3%
Bernie Sanders     2%
Jim Webb            1%
Howard Dean      1%

6 head to head matchups were measured with The Republican nominees being in a tight race with Hillary Clinton but clearly beating Joe Biden.

Christie edges Clinton  47% vs 46%
Bush edges Clinton  48% to 47%
Clinton edges Paul 47% to 48%
Christie beats Biden 49% to 42%
Bush beats Biden 50% to 44%
Paul beats Biden 49% to 44%.

Views – 881

According to an August 6 Quinnipiac poll of NJ voters, Hillary Clinton leads Chris Christie 50-42 for President in 2016.

That is the closest gap, however, with any of the Republican nominees:
54-34 over Jeb Bush
55-35 over Rand Paul
57-34 over Mike Huckabee

This is not surprising as the Democrats won New Jersey rather easily in 2012 with Obama getting 58% and Romney 41%.

Link to full poll

Views – 887

This week’s updated odds showed movement among 6 candidates:

Hillary Clinton continued to be the top candidate and actually improved her probability from 41% to 45%.

Rick Perry improved moving into a three way tie with Marco Rubio and Paul Ryan.  As of early July he was in 10th place and 7th place just last week. He seems to be capitalizing on the border crisis.  His probability is at 3.1%

The biggest move was from Ben Carson who moved from being 45th end of June, to 29th last week, to 12th this week.  Odds doubled as payoff moved from +10000 to +5000. Carson announced he is forming a PAC on  Friday.  His probability is still low at 1.3%.

Mitt Romney saw another improvement to the 10th spot and now tied with Ted Cruz.  He was in the 30th spot in May and June.  Perhaps it’s due to a recent poll that showed voters would vote for Romney over Obama if they could vote today, or some may now be seeing Romney as the “lovable loser”. Romeny’s probability is now at 1.6%.

Marco Rubio has dropped from a tie for second to third place, perhaps the offset to Rick Perry’s move up and Rubio’s more moderate view on Immigration reform.

Bobby Jindal saw a slight drop from a tie for 10th with Ted Cruz to 12th place as Mitt Romney moved into the 10th spot.

Views – 963