Rouzer poll shows tight race in 7th Congressional District. Candidates sniping.

Cape Fear Watchdog$ 

Monday, July 30, 2012 at 11:17 by Pat Gannon

This post has been updated with reaction from McIntyre’s campaign.

State Sen. David Rouzer’s congressional campaign released the results of a poll Monday showing a tight race with Mike McIntyre in the 7^th Congressional District, but a McIntyre spokesman characterized the release as a “weak attempt” to try to reverse the incumbent’s momentum.

The poll showed 44 percent of voters favor McIntyre, a Lumberton Democrat, in the November election, while 40 percent support Rouzer, a Johnston County Republican. About 15 percent were undecided.
Conducted last week, the Public Opinion Strategies survey of 400 likely voters in the district has a margin of error of 4.9 percent, causing the pollsters to deem the race a “statistical dead heat.”

“Voters in Southeastern North Carolina are tired of politicians in Washington spending money we don’t have on programs that aren’t working and they recognize that Congressman McIntyre is part of the problem,” said Rouzer spokeswoman Jessica Wood in a prepared statement.

The poll also showed that 81 percent of the likely voters disapprove of the job Congress is doing.

The Rouzer campaign declined to release details of the poll results, such as party affiliations of those surveyed or the exact questions or order they were asked, making it difficult to determine the significance of the results. The McIntyre campaign hasn’t released results of its polls.

Responding to the poll release, McIntyre spokesman Lachlan McIntosh said the Rouzer campaign is in a “free fall” and characterized the poll as “weak attempt to try and change the overwhelming amount of support that is continuing to build” for McIntyre.

He cited McIntyre’s fundraising advantage and recruitment of nearly 200 volunteers, who have made tens of thousands of phone calls.

“Sen. Rouzer has failed on nearly every front to mount a credible campaign thus far, and our campaign is moving ahead to always put people over politics and issues over ideology,” McIntosh wrote in a prepared statement.

Wood, from Rouzer’s campaign, said that response was expected because “there really is no response they could have to a challenger closing the gap this early in the race.”
Rouzer is challenging McIntyre in the 7th district, which includes all or parts of 12 Southeastern North Carolina counties.