Trump, Biden in virtual tie among North Carolina and Georgia voters: poll

President Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden are neck-and-neck in Georgia and North Carolina, while Trump holds a 10-point lead in South Carolina, according to a CBS/YouGov poll released Sunday.

Biden and Trump are statistically tied in Georgia, where 47 percent of likely voters support Trump, versus 46 percent for Biden.

In North Carolina, 48 percent of likely voters support Biden, versus 46 percent for Trump.

South Carolina appears to be less competitive, with Trump leading Biden 52 percent to 42 percent. However, the Palmetto State’s Senate race was much closer in the polls, with Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.) receiving 45 percent to Democratic challenger Jaime Harrison’s 44 percent.

Most poll respondents said the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the resulting vacancy on the court has raised the stakes of the election for them. Fifty-three percent of Georgia voters and 56 percent of North Carolina voters said it made the election more important for them. Forty-three percent of Georgia respondents and 42 percent of North Carolina voters said it did not affect the election’s importance, while 3 percent and 2 percent, respectively, said it made it less important.

A greater percentage of Democrats were motivated by the issue than Republicans, according to the survey. Sixty percent of Democrats in both Georgia and North Carolina said it made them more motivated to vote, compared to 46 percent of Georgia Republicans and 47 percent of North Carolina Republicans.

On the subject of the Affordable Care Act, 58 percent of North Carolina likely voters approved of the law versus 42 percent who disapproved. While the polling was conducted before Trump nominated Judge Amy Coney Barrett to replace Ginsburg, Democrats have since pointed to her writings on the ACA and said she will likely vote to overturn the 2010 health care law.

The polls were conducted Sept. 22-25 among 1,164 registered voters in Georgia, 1,213 in North Carolina and 1,080 in South Carolina. It has a 3.3-point margin of error in Georgia, 3.6 points in North Carolina and 3.8 in South Carolina.