Kamala Harris' chances of capturing the swing state of North Carolina: New polls

The battle for North Carolina is proving to be one of the closest in the 2024 presidential race, with Vice President Kamala Harris continuing to receive positive signals from the state that former President Donald Trump won twice.

Two polls released Friday showed Harris and Trump tied in North Carolina, one of several battleground states the candidates are heading toward in the final weeks before Election Day. Trump won the state and its 16 electoral votes in both 2016 and 2020, although Harris is trying to break the winning streak – and scandals surrounding the GOP candidate in North Carolina's gubernatorial race could help propel the vice president to victory.

In a CNN-SSRS poll based on responses from 931 registered voters between Sept. 20 and Sept. 25, Harris and Trump were tied in the Tar Heel State with 48 percent of the vote each. A Meredith Poll poll conducted between September 17th and 20th and published on Friday came to the same results: Of 802 likely voters, the candidates were tied at 48 percent each.

“Kamala Harris’ candidacy has essentially returned the presidential campaign to where it was in 2020 — an election that will be one of the closest in the country’s history,” Meredith College poll director David McLennan said in a report accompanying the poll accompanied.

“A Trump victory in the Electoral College depends on him winning North Carolina,” McLennan added. “The Trump campaign will continue to pump resources into the state. If Harris can hold out and win North Carolina, her chances of winning the presidency increase significantly.”

Harris' perhaps best news of the day came from a Fox News poll that showed the lead in North Carolina has turned over the last month. While Trump led by one point (50 percent to 49 percent) among registered voters in North Carolina in August, Harris was ahead by two points and leading in the same poll conducted between September 20 and 24 Race with 50 to 48 percent.

According to FiveThirtyEight's analysis, the former president is ahead by an average of just 0.2 percentage points in all North Carolina polls as of Friday.

According to pollster Nate Silver's election predictions, North Carolina has the potential to become a tipping point state in November. The top state the candidates are fighting for remains Pennsylvania, which Silver estimates has a 32 percent chance of swinging the election in favor of either candidate. North Carolina, which has only three fewer electoral votes than Pennsylvania, has an 11 percent chance of doing the same.

Trump's chances in North Carolina could also be hurt by the fact that Republican Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson, who is running for governor of the state with Trump's support, was accused of making racist and sexist posts on a porn site years before he entered politics.

Harris' campaign relied on reports of Robinson's past controversial statements by repeatedly linking Trump to the gubernatorial candidate. Since CNN's initial report on the scandal, several of Robinson's top aides have resigned, although he continues to deny the allegations.

Trump first publicly commented on the Robinson controversy during a press conference on Thursday, telling reports at his Trump Tower in Manhattan: “Uh, I don't know the situation.”

In an email to Newsweek On Friday, Matt Mercer, the North Carolina Republican Party's communications director, said Trump's campaign “feels good about its position in the state,” adding that voters “will deliver for President Trump a third time.”

“Every day from now until November 5th is about making calls, knocking on doors and getting our voters to the polls,” Mercer said.

He added that there is “no data to suggest that a race in North Carolina has a significant impact on the presidential election,” noting that Trump has won in previous elections with a Democrat as governor.

Update 9/26/24, 7:51 p.m. ET: This story has been updated with additional comment from the North Carolina Republican Party.