Vice President Kamala Harris is vying to become only the second Democratic presidential candidate to win North Carolina in more than 40 years as the state has slowly shifted to the left, with most polls showing her and former President Donald Trump in nearly a dead heat—but Trump has a slight advantage in several new surveys.
Former President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally in Greenville, North Carolina.
Trump leads likely voters 50% to 49% in a Marist poll released Thursday and 49.6%-48.5% in a Bloomberg/Morning Consult poll out Wednesday, both within the surveys’ margins of error (3.6 points for Marist, four points for Bloomberg).
Trump is up 50% to 47% in a Washington Post-Schar School poll released Monday, still within the 3.9-point margin of error, while a Quinnipiac poll of likely voters released Oct. 16 found Harris leading 49% to 47%, a reversal of Trump’s 49%-47% lead two weeks ago.
Two other recent polls also found Trump with an edge: He led 46%-45% in a Wall Street Journal poll published Oct. 11 that includes third-party candidates, and led 49%-48% in an Emerson College poll out Oct. 10, after Harris led 49%-48% in the group’s September survey.
Trump is up 0.9 points in FiveThirtyEight’s weighted polling average.
The Cook Political Report moved North Carolina from “lean Republican” to a “toss up” in late August, writing that the state “looks more competitive than ever” since Harris’ entrance into the race, while Cook’s latest survey released earlier this month shows Harris and Trump tied, after Harris led by one point here in August.
If Harris wins the state, she has a more than 90% chance of winning the election, according to political analyst Nate Silver’s Voter Power Index, which found Trump would have an upwards-of-80% chance of winning the electoral college if he wins North Carolina.
Harris has a 38.6% chance of winning North Carolina, similar to her odds in Georgia, and as of August, there was an 86% chance the states will vote together, according to Silver’s model, which considers various demographic characteristics, including age, income, race and education level and the states’ voting history in the past two elections.
North Carolina’s shift to the left has largely been credited to a population increase among potential voters who typically back Democrats—including the highly educated—especially from a 5.6% increase since 2020 near the “research triangle” area of Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill, according to the Brookings Institution.
That area hosts three major research universities—Duke University, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and North Carolina University—that have also sparked related industries in high tech and the life sciences, and made it the tenth-fastest growing area in the country, according to Brookings.
And the overall percentage of North Carolinians with a bachelor’s degree—a Democratic-leaning demographic—has also increased by 1.4 million since 1990, according to a study by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Whether scandals surrounding GOP gubernatorial candidate, Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, could hurt Trump’s chances in North Carolina. Trump endorsed Robinson prior to a CNN report revealing a string of racist and derogatory comments he allegedly made on a pornographic website chat forum before his entrance into politics, including referring to himself as a “Black NAZI.” Polls taken after the Sept. 19 story show Democratic candidate Josh Stein has widened his lead over Robinson, to as many as 19 points in a recent Emerson College survey. A CNN/SSRS poll released Sept. 27 also found Robinson trailing Stein by 17 points and a tie between Trump and Harris, suggesting Robinson’s scandals haven’t affected Trump’s standing there. Historically, the demise of down-ballot candidates rarely drag down the affiliated party’s presidential candidate, CNN notes.
- That’s how many electoral college votes North Carolina has, after gaining a vote after the 2020 census. The state has the eighth most electoral votes in the country, tied with Georgia.
Despite the electorate’s increasingly Democratic leanings, Republicans hold a supermajority in both chambers of the legislature, giving it the power to override Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s vetoes.
North Carolina has only voted for one Democratic presidential candidate since 1980: Barack Obama in 2008.
Trump holds a narrow advantage in North Carolina, Georgia and Arizona, while Harris is up by slim margins in Wisconsin, Michigan and Nevada, and the two are tied in Pennsylvania, according to Nate Silver’s Silver Bulletin. No candidate is leading by more than two points in any of the seven swing states. Most recent national surveys show Trump has narrowed Harris’ lead in recent weeks. She is ahead by just 0.2 points in RealClearPolitics’ polling average. North Carolina was the only swing state where Biden lost to Trump (by one point) in 2020.
Trump Vs. Harris 2024 Polls: Harris Leads By 6 Points In Latest Likely Voter Survey (Forbes)