Poll: Jennifer Roberts leading Edwin Peacock in Charlotte mayoral race

The Charlotte Observer

By Steve Harrison

Poll: Jennifer Roberts leading Edwin Peacock in Charlotte mayoral race

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Women and minorities bolster Roberts’ campaign

Peacock targets infrequent Republican and independent voters

School diversity issue divides along racial lines

Democrat Jennifer Roberts holds a 15 percentage-point lead over Republican Edwin Peacock in the Charlotte mayor’s race two weeks before the election, according to a new Charlotte Observer poll.

Roberts has the support of 54 percent of voters who indicated they were likely to vote in the mayor’s race, compared with 39 percent for Peacock, the poll showed. Seven percent are undecided.

Peacock, a former City Council member, lost the mayor’s race two years ago by 6 percentage points to Democrat Patrick Cannon. Five months later, Cannon was arrested on federal corruption charges.

Cannon’s arrest has been a focal point for Peacock in 2022. He launched his campaign with a cartoon video of Cannon in the mayor’s office surrounded by sacks of money – a reference to the former mayor accepting a briefcase with $20,000 in cash from federal agents.

Peacock is using the arrest to implore more people to vote. He is making a push to get infrequent Republican and independent voters to the polls by reminding them of the consequences of not voting two years ago.

But the poll results suggested that the scandal was not a big issue. When asked whether Cannon’s arrest would influence their vote, 84 percent of the respondents said no.

Roberts announced she would run for mayor in May of 2014, two months after Cannon’s arrest. Not only has she been campaigning longer than any candidate, her opponents in the Democratic primary have said Roberts was effective at reaching out to voters by attending numerous forums, neighborhood meetings and other events.

Her main campaign themes are expanding economic opportunity and improving schools.

Campaigns respond

Peacock leads among white voters, 51 percent to 42 percent, according to the poll. But Roberts overcomes that advantage with a large lead among minorities, with 79 percent of the black vote and 63 percent of the Hispanic vote, the poll showed.

She also has a wide lead among female voters, 59 percent to 34 percent.

“I like her stand on education, and I like that she’s a woman,” said Queen Byrd, an African-American voter who lives in Clanton Park in west Charlotte. “We have had a lot of men. It’s time for a woman.”

“I sense she’s a people person,” said Sharon Edwards, a white voter who lives in Raintree in south Charlotte and supports Roberts. “We need to be looking to bringing people together and figuring out how we can all live together. It doesn’t have anything to do with politics. It’s just me listening to two of them, and I just feel comfortable with her.”

Edwards said she’s most concerned that the new apartment boom will price people out of Charlotte.

The Observer’s poll surveyed 1,324 likely voters last week, with a margin of sampling error of 2.7 percent.
Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/politics-government/election/article39644262.html#storylink=cpy

 

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