Civitas Poll--is it really reliable? Shows Basnight under 50% support in NC-1 race

Article on Senator Marc Basnight's re-election bid in North Carolina Senate District #1 from Examiner.com/Election2010.

http://www.examiner.com/x-60417-Wake-County-Elections-2010-Examiner~y201...

According to a poll of 798 registered voters in North Carolina Senate District #1, 49 percent of voters said they would vote to re-elect Marc Basnight, "if the election for state senator were today." Thirty-nine percent said they would vote for Republican candidate Hood Richardson, and 12 percent said they were undecided.

Among voters who say they are definitely voting in November, Basnight’s lead shrinks to just one percentage point, 47%-46%.

In a press release August 4, Chris Hayes, a Civitas Legislative Analyst, said “Senate President Marc Basnight is a North Carolina institution, but his district is changing underneath him, with many new voters moving in and those voters don’t have the same loyalty to him that long-time residents do.

According to Hayes, Senate District 1 is certainly ‘in play’ this year, the question is, can [Hood ]Richardson raise the money to be competitive?”

Note: Chris Fitzsimon of Policy Watch criticized the Civitas Poll recently in his column saying they only release results when their polls show results favoring Republican candidates. In reviewing their polls online I found that the sample I looked at disproportionately represented Republican voters over Unafilliated and Democratic voters.

Fitzsimon responded to criticism by Hayes saying he had carefully looked at the numbers online,and he said that he still felt the poll results published were skewed in a personal email message regarding another artic