Former President Donald Trump has a slight lead in the race for President in North Carolina, while Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein holds a double-digit advantage in the race for Governor, per a new poll from the UMass Lowell Center for Public Opinion.
With less than a week until the General Election, Trump is about even with Vice President Kamala Harris at 47% and 45%, respectively, the poll showed.
“Given survey results on voter intention and candidate attributes, the election could go in any direction,” said political science Assistant Professor Rodrigo Castro Cornejo, associate director of the Center for Public Opinion. “The outcome will likely depend on the strength of each party’s get-out-the-vote mobilization efforts.”
In the survey of 650 Tar Heel State voters, more respondents say Trump is better able to handle the economy than Harris, 49% to 41%. More respondents also say they prefer Trump’s immigration policy, 52% to 39%.
Poll findings issued Thursday are the result of an online-based survey conducted from Oct. 16 through Oct. 23 that carries a margin of error of 4.2 percentage points.
More respondents rate Harris as better able to handle abortion policy than Trump, 50% to 37%.
Indecision was low among respondents, as no other candidate received support from more than 1% of respondents, while 4% say they are undecided.
Simultaneous polls were released Thursday outlining the perspectives of likely voters in New Hampshire, Michigan and Pennsylvania. Complete data, including state race information, can be found here.
With 12% of respondents undecided, Stein holds a lead at 48% over Republican Mark Robinson’s 36% in the race for North Carolina Governor.
“It wouldn’t be a presidential year in North Carolina without a scandal, and this year’s scandal in the governor’s race has turned a winnable election into a disaster for Mark Robinson,” said political science Associate Professor John Cluverius, Center for Public Opinion director of survey research. “It’s been more than a decade since Republicans abolished straight-ticket voting, and this year it’s coming back to haunt them.”
No other candidate received more than 2% support from poll respondents.
The results echo other recent polls that have Trump and Harris running neck-and-neck while Stein runs away in the Governor’s race following revelations that Robinson posted racist, antisemitic and sexually explicit comments on a porn site over a decade ago.
Robinson was running a double-digit deficit in the gubernatorial race even before the CNN story of those comments broke. He has denied any connection with the comments and has sued CNN for defamation.
