Rasmussen has released a poll today for North Carolina showing the state is still very much in play.
Rasmussen 7/17/08 (6/12 numbers in parenthesis)
McCain 45 (45)
Obama 42 (43)
Rasmussen also then asked those still undecided which way they leaned, with leaners the numbers are
McCain 48
Obama 45
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/...
Interesting tidbits. It looks like McCain has reached a ceiling in North Carolina. He is already attracting the support of 85% of Republicans (last month he was drawing 87%). Obama on the other hand has more of an upside. Right now he is only drawing support from 69% of Democrats (last month it was 76%), he is also leading among independent voters by a large margin --- drawing 43% of Independents to McCain's 33% (last month Obama only had a three point lead among Independents in North Carolina).
One other thing to consider is that Democrats voter registration numbers are good in North Carolina. Specifically: As of May 31, 2008, there were 2,634,509 registered Dems, 1,933,174 registered Reps, and 1,245,279 Independents. As of July 5, 2008, the number is 2,640,850 Dems, 1,934,505 Reps, and 1,253,102 Independents. That means through the month of June, Dems gained 6,500 registered voters, Reps gained 1,400 voters, and Independents gained nearly 8,000 voters. Interestingly, as of May 31, 2008, there were 1,204,518 registered African-Americans in North Carolina, but as of July 5, 2008, that number was 1,207,398, roughly a 3,000 increase through the month of June. Given that Dems gained about 6,500 new voters over the month of June, it shows that Dems were able to register twice as many non-African-American voters in the month of June (assuming that most, if not all, of the new African-American registrants were Dems), than the Reps.
UPDATE---I went back over to the North Carolina State Board of Elections website and found the lastest official numbers released as of July 12, 2008, there were 2,648,277 Dems (an increase of 7,500 from just July 5), 1,935,560 Reps (an increase of only 1,500 since July 5), and 1,260,243 Independents (an increase of 7,000 since July 5). This is important because Obama leads among the partisan id groups that are growing rapidly while mcCain's bulwark of support is for the most part treading water.