Four days later and with such a thin margin, the lead has been halved in the presidential polling for North Carolinians.
Absent a major unexpected occurrence, evidence remains strong neither Republican Donald Trump nor Democrat Kamala Harris is likely to pull away in the final month. Not in the polls, anyway.
The 78-year-old former president does have historical pattern to outperform the polls. Harris, 17 days shy of her 60th birthday, has history of being the vice president on the winning ticket of President Joe Biden four years ago despite losing North Carolina’s 15 electoral college votes.
This time there’s 16 and analysts say of the seven consensus battleground states, the eventual 270 to win is likely going to need to include those or Pennsylvania’s 19 – and possibly both.
Sunday morning, RealClear Polling’s edge for Trump was up to 1.4% with no margin of error factored in for polls it puts in the equation from Sept. 11-25. At Project 538, analysis of the state pegged Trump ahead 47.8%-47.4%.
Thursday morning, RealClear was measuring Sept. 17 through Wednesday and placed Trump ahead 49.1%-48.5%. Project 538 scored Trump ahead 48.0%-47.5%.
Recent polls now tapped into the RealClear analysis include East Carolina University (Trump 49%-47%), InsiderAdvantage (Trump 50%-49%), Quinnipiac University (Trump 49%-48%), Washington Post (Trump 50%-48%), and Emerson College (Trump 49%-48%). In all five, respondents were likely voters; there were between 800 and 1,005 in each; and margin of error ranged from +/- 3.0% to +/- 3.5%.
Project 538’s most recent data includes each of the same polls.
The seven consensus battleground states represent 93 electoral college votes. Pennsylvania has 19, North Carolina and Georgia 16 each, Michigan 15, Arizona 11, Wisconsin 10 and Nevada six.
In 2020, Trump won the state 49.9%-48.6%. In the lead in, polls showed a toss-up or Biden ahead. In 2016, Trump won the state 49.8%-46.2% over the ticket of Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine. Clinton won every poll but one from mid-September to late October.
Republicans also own an unmistakable 14-cycle pattern in presidential elections. Since Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson carried the state and won the presidency in 1964, only Democrats Jimmy Carter (1976) and Barack Obama (2008) have prevailed. Respectively four years later for each, they lost to Ronald Reagan and Mitt Romney.
Election Day is 33 days away, early in-person voting is 14 days away, and absentee-by-mail voting is underway.
