Poll: Burr narrowly leads Democrat in NC Senate race

Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) holds a narrow lead over his Democratic opponent, Deborah Ross, according to a new poll Thursday.

Burr has 40 percent and Ross has 37 percent, according to the survey from the left-leaning Public Policy Polling. Libertarian candidate Sean Haugh got 5 percent.

{mosads}Burr still faces a negative job approval rating, with 40 percent of respondents disapproving of the job the GOP senator is doing, while just 30 percent believe he’s doing a good job.

But Ross, a former state representative, is still relatively unknown — 62 percent of voters have no opinion of her.

The results from Thursday’s poll remain almost unchanged from a poll conducted in May, which also found Burr leading Ross by 3 points, 39 to 36 percent.

“Richard Burr’s the most vulnerable Republican Senator that no one’s talking about,” said Dean Debnam, president of Public Policy Polling, in a statement accompanying the poll. “His numbers aren’t any better than those of folks like Pat Toomey and Rob Portman who are widely accepted to be facing tough reelections.”

Burr faces a more difficult terrain in the fall in a state that President Obama won by a razor-thin margin in the 2008 election and narrowly lost in 2012.

The poll was conducted from June 20 to 21 and surveyed 947 registered voters via phone and online. The margin of error is 3.2 percentage points.