Former President Trump holds a 2-point advantage over Vice President Harris in a new Quinnipiac poll of likely voters in North Carolina — a reversal from just a few weeks earlier, when Harris led Trump by 3 points.
Trump leads with 49 percent support, Harris earns 47 percent support, Green Party candidate Jill Stein gets 1 percent support and Justice For All Party candidate Cornel West gets 1 percent support in the Quinnipiac University poll conducted in late September and released Tuesday.
In a head-to-head match-up, Trump leads Harris by 1 percentage point, 49 percent support to 48 percent.
Pollsters say the North Carolina race is “too close to call,” noting that Trump’s lead falls within the margin of error.
Still, the poll offers much better news for Trump than last month’s poll from Quinnipiac, which found Harris leading Trump by 3 points, 49 percent support to 46 percent. Stein followed with 1 percent support.
In the two-way race, Harris also led Trump last month by 3 points, 50 percent support to 47 percent.
The latest poll shows Harris’s support among independents growing, while her support among young voters has dropped significantly. Among Democrats, her support dipped slightly.
Today, independents favor Harris over Trump by 2 points, 47 percent to 45 percent, whereas last month, Trump had a 5-point advantage over Harris among independents, 47 percent to 42 percent.
Among voters ages 18-34, Harris has seen a 31-point shift since last month, when she led Trump 55 percent to 42 percent. Today, her support has declined by 16 points, to 39 percent, and Trump’s support has increased by 15 points, to 57 percent.
Among Democrats, Harris’s lead declined by 4 points, from 99 percent last month to 95 percent in the recent survey. Three percent of Democrats, meanwhile, now support Trump, up from 1 percent last month. Among Republicans, support for Harris declined by 1 point, from 5 percent to 4 percent, while Trump’s support ticked up by 1 point, from 94 percent to 95 percent.
Both candidates have focused on North Carolina as Election Day nears. North Carolina has 16 electoral votes and was the only one of seven swing states the two candidates are hotly contesting to go for Trump in 2020.
North Carolina voters last backed a Democrat for president in 2008, when former President Obama ran against the late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).
Recent polls show Trump and Harris neck and neck in North Carolina polls. In a poll last week from Elon University and YouGov, Harris held a 1-point lead over Trump. A CNN poll released last Friday had the two candidates exactly tied, with 48 percent support each.
In the Decision Desk HQ/The Hill polling average in North Carolina, Trump leads Harris by 0.8 percentage points, 49 percent support to 48.2 percent.
The Quinnipiac poll was conducted Sept. 25-29, 2024, and included 953 likely voters. The margin of error is 3.2 percentage points.