With President Bush's popularity in North Carolina in decline, some of that may be rubbing off on GOP House candidates, according to a new Elon University Poll.

While 46 percent of those polled said they had voted for Bush in the 2004 election, only 26 percent said they would back Republicans in next year's congressional election.

"It is clear that Bush's troubles are trickling down to other members of his party," said Hunter Bacot, the poll's director. "Republican members of the House are going to be able to visit their districts during the holiday break and have an opportunity to counter or repair any damage that is being done by the administration's poor standing."

But there is also some good news. Sixty-eight percent of those polled expressed some confidence in their congressman. Only 27 percent said they did not have much confidence.

The survey of 488 adults was conducted Nov. 14-17. The poll has an error margin of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.

Contribution draws criticism

State Rep. Ed McMahan, a Charlotte Republican, has been taking some flak in recent days for a $1,000 contribution his political committee made last year to Democratic State Treasurer Richard Moore.

The contribution has been the subject of e-mail messages because McMahan was elected this fall as one of North Carolina's three members of the Republican National Committee.

"I think that is inexcusable," said Marcus Kindley, the Guilford County Republican chairman. Kindley is close to Ed Meyers, Moore's Republican opponent in the 2004 election.

"If he did that, he should not have been our national committeeman. It betrays all the grass-roots workers across the state who worked for Ed Meyers."

McMahan said the contribution was supposed to have been made by the PAC belonging to Little and Associates, an architectural engineering firm for which McMahan works. He said the architectural PAC gives to candidates of both major parties.

He said a secretary mistakenly made the contribution in the name of McMahan's personal PAC.

"I didn't know anything about it until the [campaign spending] report was filed," McMahan said.

He said he was in the process of having the architectural firm PAC reimburse his campaign PAC for the $1,000.

Geddings news is old news

The N.C. Board of Ethics on Monday unsealed the minutes of last week's closed meeting in which board members discussed former lottery commissioner Kevin Geddings' work for major lottery vendor Scientific Games.

But the decision in a short teleconference was more a whimper than a bang. The news about the additional work Geddings had performed for Scientific Games was already out of the bag.

An attorney for Geddings, a Charlotte public relations executive, had written a letter to the board responding to its concerns that Geddings had received $24,500 in work from Scientific Games this year -- much of it to help promote a state lottery during the legislative session. Geddings had not disclosed the work on his ethics form when he joined the commission.

Geddings stepped down from the commission shortly before the company disclosed the work. But his attorney's letter disclosed that he had been working for Scientific Games as far back as 2002 and had received an additional $18,000.

Ethics officials said they tried to keep that information secret at the request of "prosecutors and law enforcement officials" who are looking into the dealings of Geddings and another Scientific Games consultant, lobbyist Meredith Norris, who until recently was also House Speaker Jim Black's unpaid political director.

But Perry Newson, the board's executive director, released the letter shortly after last week's meeting when he learned that it had already been made public.