President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are tied at 49 percent apiece, according to a new CallFire poll in the crucial swing state of North Carolina. Results were identical for registered and self-described “likely” voters.

The poll, conducted this week via cell phones and landlines, reached out to 903 registered voters and 749 “likely” voters throughout the state. Of the total sample, 37 percent of “likely” voters identified with the Democratic Party, 32 percent with the Republican Party, and 30 percent listed themselves as “independent.” Among registered voters, 37 percent identified with the Democratic Party, 32 percent with the G.O.P. and 30 percent as independent. The margin of error among registered voters is +/- 3.1 percent; among likely voters, the margin is +/- 3.4 percent.

Using SmartVAN data and CallFire telephone services, the poll builds on the recent partnership between CallFire and NGP VAN that provides state-of-the-art voice broadcast and automated survey functionality to Democrats and progressives. CallFire (callfire.com), a leader in voice and text communication solutions that help companies and organizations grow, teamed with NGP VAN (ngpvan.com), the technology provider used by virtually every Democratic candidate and progressive organization conducting a field campaign, including President Obama’s organization.

In addition to the overarching question of presidential preference by the sample population, the CallFire poll probed various issues and attitudes among North Carolina voters:

• When asked which candidate would be better for women’s issues, 61 percent of “likely voters” said President Obama while 38 percent named Gov. Romney.
• When asked which candidate would be better in a crisis situation, 51 percent of “likely voters” named Obama, versus 46 percent for Romney.
• When asked, “Do you think you are personally better off today than you were at the end of George W. Bush’s term?” 43 percent of registered and “likely” voters answered “better off” – the same percentage that answered “worse.”
• When asked to assess responsibility for “being obstructive to the economic recovery,” registered voters and “likely” voters agreed, by identical margins. Forty-four percent of both “likely” and registered voters put the onus on “Republicans in Congress,” while 42 percent blamed the Obama Administration.
• In response to the question, “Do you think that President Obama’s medical reforms will ultimately raise, lower, or leave medical costs unaffected?” 41 percent of “likely” voters in North Carolina said that it will raise costs, while 45 percent said it would lower them.

With the campaign in its final week, candidates and issue campaigns across the U.S. are using the CallFire platform, now fully integrated to provide reliable, affordable voice communications and constituent outreach. These campaigns are currently conducting voter identification and persuasion, grassroots fundraising, rally crowd building, volunteer recruitment, get out the vote (GOTV), and other activities.

In addition to fueling campaign outreach to voters across the U.S. and in the key swing states, such as North Carolina, CallFire is conducting a series of surveys that measure voter pulse points and offer a broader “voice” to the public through CallFire’s cloud telephony-based communications.

Seated at the intersection of technology and politics, these telephony-driven voter surveys are a part of the spectrum of offerings from CallFire and NGP VAN. Through its state-of the art telephony-based voice and text communications services, CallFire is able to offer the same voter outreach tools, available to the Obama campaign, to thousands of other national, state and local campaigns.

About CallFire

Based in Santa Monica, Calif., CallFire (callfire.com) simplifies telephony, making sophisticated, expensive carrier class telecom capabilities available through an affordable, easy-to-use GUI and API platform. Any business, from start-up to enterprise, can reach its customers on any device, over voice or text, using CallFire’s massively scalable, cloud telecom platform. CallFire products include Voice APIs, Business Text Messaging, Voice Broadcast, Local Phone Numbers, Call Tracking, IVR, Power Dialing for agents and more. Call analytics enable CallFire’s 50,000 users to reach customers more often using text marketing, virtual numbers, auto dialers and mobile messaging.