Poll: Trump captures 4% swing on Harris in North Carolina

Sixty-one percent of North Carolinians say the United States is “headed in the wrong direction” in a poll that Donald Trump leads Kamala Harris 49%-47%.

Released Monday, the New York Times/Sienna College poll is a 4% flip from the pollster’s Aug. 9-14 data that had Harris leading 49%-47%. That poll began 19 days after Harris became a candidate and was before the Democratic National Convention and the only debate between the presidential hopefuls.

The sampling was taken Tuesday through Saturday of 682 registered voters and has margin of error of +/ 4.2%. This means that, like in August, the candidates are statistically tied.

Added into the RealClear polling average for North Carolina, which does not account for margin of error, Trump leads Harris 47.8%-47.4%. For context, Trump outperformed polls in winning the state in 2016 over Hillary Clinton and in 2020 over Joe Biden.

Trump, the 78-year-old Republican and former president, was in Wilmington on Saturday and returns Wednesday to Mint Hill. Harris, the 59-year-old Democrat second in charge of the incumbent Biden administration, was in the state for two stops on Thursday of the week before.

As for the country’s direction, 11% didn’t know or didn’t answer, and 28% say it is on the right track.

In questions on favorability, no good news was to be had by either of the candidates or Biden. With choices of very favorable, somewhat favorable, somewhat unfavorable and very unfavorable, the combined unfavorable choices totaled 51% for Trump and 51% for Harris. Biden’s combined somewhat disapprove and strongly disapprove numbers for “handling his job as president” totaled 55%.

The poll’s sampling wasn’t far off the actual voting bloc percentages. Respondents identified as 35% independent, 31% Democrats and 29% Republicans. The state’s more than 7.6 million registered voters split to more than 37% unaffiliated, just under 32% Democrats and just under 30% Republicans.

In the state’s gubernatorial race, Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein leads Republican Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson 47%-36%. During the polling, Robinson responded to a damning published report saying it was not true, and he was going to remain in the race. Long an ally of Trump, he was not at Saturday’s event, instead campaigning at a racetrack in Fayetteville.

A significant portion of his campaign staff quit over the weekend; the positions will be refilled.

Of 24 choices for “most important in deciding your vote this November,” the poll leaders were economy including jobs and stock market (24%), abortion (13%), immigration (12%), inflation and the cost of living (7%), and dislike of opposing candidate (6%). All others were 5% or less, including character/competence (5%), state of democracy/corruption (5%), health care (2%), climate change (2%), education (1%), gun policies (less than 1%), racism (less than 1%), election integrity (less than 1%), crime (less than 1%), and Middle East/Israel/Palestinians (less than 0.5%).