Establishment-backed former North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory (R) cited a recent poll showing him only seven points behind Trump-endorsed Rep. Ted Budd (R-NC) for North Carolina’s U.S. Senate seat, despite nearly every other poll putting Budd ahead by double digits.

At a press conference this week, McCrory cited data from a poll conducted by Meredith College and released on Tuesday, which shows Budd leading with 32.7 percent support and McCrory with 25.7 percent. The former governor specifically pointed to data from the poll showing that over one-third of voters are undecided just two weeks out from the May 17 Republican primary race, adding that his campaign sees a “clear path to victory.”

“Most polls show that over a third of the electorate is undecided. And we have our ads up on TV across the state in a major sustained way for the first time in this race,” said McCrory, who is retiring Sen. Richard Burr’s (R-NC) choice to fill his seat. Burr was notably one of the seven Senate Republicans who voted in favor of convicting Trump on impeachment charges in 2021.

“We see a clear path to victory even as the ‘Club for Chinese Growth’ tries to buy this Senate nomination and take over the Republican Party in North Carolina,” McCrory continued. 

In a statement to Breitbart News on Wednesday, Budd’s senior adviser Jonathan Felts called out McCrory for using “not the best source for actionable intel” to assert he has any chance at beating Budd in the upcoming election. 

“The Meredith College Poll was one for four in accurately predicting elections in 2020, so not the best source for actionable intel — but desperate candidates gonna do desperate things,” Felts said. “But c’mon man, if Pat McCrory’s hopes hinge on Undecideds breaking in favor of a failed, career politician like him? Then McCrory’s record is also going to be one for four on May 18.”

According to an analysis by FiveThirtyEight, Meredith College has indeed only called one race correctly out of four polls and has a tendency to heavily overestimates Democrat candidates. This particular poll was conducted with 1,225 registered North Carolina voters between April 25-27 and has a confidence interval of ±2.7 percent.

North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory speaks during a University of North Carolina Institute of Politics forum in Chapel Hill, N.C., on Jan. 16, 2020. (Gerry Broome, File / AP)

Meredith College Poll Director David McLennan did, however, note the power of former President Donald Trump’s endorsement in propelling Budd’s candidacy.

“The Trump endorsement of Budd is significant. Public opinion polls of this race during the winter showed McCrory with a lead, but Trump’s presence in the race, as well as heavy spending by independent expenditure organizations, such as the Club for Growth, against McCrory seems to have reversed Budd’s fortunes,” McLennan said.

In stark contrast to Meredith College’s poll, two other polls released this week again show Budd leading by double-digits. On Wednesday, North Carolina Chamber Political Program released a poll showing Budd leading McCrory by 24 points, 45 percent to 21 percent. Atlantic Polling Strategies (APS) conducted the poll in partnership with NC Chamber with 534 likely GOP voters from April 25-28 and has a Credibility Interval (CI) of ±4.9 percent.

Another poll released Thursday from Trafalgar Group likewise shows Budd 24 points ahead of McCrory, 53 percent to 29 percent. The poll was conducted between April 23-25 with 1,049 likely 2022 GOP primary voters and has a ±3 percent margin of error at the 95 percent confidence level.

The double-digit trend has been ongoing since early April when an Emerson College/the Hill poll first showed Budd taking a 16-point lead over McCrory, 38 percent to 22 percent. In late March, a Vitales & Associates poll showed Budd only three points ahead of McCrory, 32 percent to 29 percent.

So far, in Republican primaries in other states, every single candidate to snag a Trump endorsement has made a clean sweep in their races, revealing the ongoing influence and power of the “America First” movement. In the early March Texas Republican primaries, which were the first regularly scheduled primary elections in the 2022 cycle, all 33 of Trump’s endorsed candidates came in first. This Tuesday, all 22 Trump-endorsed candidates in Ohio and Indiana endorsed completed a clean sweep, “indicating the strength of a Trump endorsement is as mighty as it has ever been,” Breitbart News reported.

Katherine Hamilton is a political reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on Twitter.