CNN polls show close races in Georgia and North Carolina

CNN
—

Neither Vice President Kamala Harris nor former President Donald Trump have gained a clear advantage in the race for the White House in two key Southern states, according to new CNN polls from SSRS.

Georgia voters probably split 48% for Trump and 47% for Harris, and in North Carolina Harris is at 48% to 47% for Trump. The results are within the margin of error in both states, suggesting there is no clear frontrunner in either contest.

Both states are hotly contested in this year’s presidential election. North Carolina, which narrowly supported Barack Obama in 2008, has voted Republican in the last three presidential elections. However, in 2020, it was the state where Trump had the narrowest margin of victory. Joe Biden defeated Trump in Georgia four years ago by less than one percentage point, becoming the first Democrat to win the state since Bill Clinton in 1992.

The results indicate little movement since CNN’s late August poll in Georgia and the late September poll in North Carolina, which also had no clear frontrunner in the race. An overwhelming 95% of likely voters in every state now say they have made up their minds, leaving a dwindling pool of potentially mobile voters but still large enough to tip the race in either direction. More than half of likely voters in both Georgia (59%) and North Carolina (52%) say they have already voted, with those voters leading by 7 points in Georgia and 6 points in Georgia North Carolina leans narrowly towards Harris.

In both states, about two-thirds of Harris supporters — 69% in Georgia and 67% in North Carolina — say they vote overwhelmingly to support her rather than against Trump. That’s a higher share than the latest CNN poll in the other five battleground states – Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin – where the average share is closer to 60%. Much of the difference is due to Harris’ black supporters in Georgia and North Carolina, about 8 in 10 of whom say their vote was largely in support of the vice president. This is true even though registered Black voters in both states are less likely than registered White voters to say they are “extremely motivated” to vote.

Large majorities of Trump supporters in both states — 81% in Georgia and 75% in North Carolina — say their vote is primarily about supporting the former president rather than opposing Harris. That’s comparable to the share of Trump supporters saying the same in other battleground states.

In contrast to the razor-thin race for the White House, Democrat Josh Stein has a clear lead in the race for North Carolina governor, leading scandal-plagued Republican Mark Robinson 53% to 37% among likely voters. This is due to the significant vote split in favor of opposing Democrats: 77% of Trump voters in the state say they support Robinson in the gubernatorial race, 10% support Stein and another 12% say they would not vote for either of the primary candidates. Nearly all Harris supporters in the state, 96%, say they support Stein.

While the polls overall show a similar political environment in Georgia and North Carolina, there are some significant differences.

Biden receives similarly low job performance ratings in every state: 39% of likely voters in North Carolina and 37% in Georgia say they approve. However, the White House is receiving significantly lower ratings for its response to Hurricane Helene in the Tar Heel State. 42 percent of likely voters in Georgia, but only 36 percent in North Carolina, say they approve of the way the Biden administration handled the federal response to Hurricane Helene, with a sizable share of likely voters Voters in both states say they are unsure about how they view the response to the storm (17% in North Carolina, 14% in Georgia). Views of the administration’s storm response generally run along partisan lines, yet 11% of Harris supporters in North Carolina say they disapprove of the way the Biden administration has handled the response to Helene. In Georgia, Harris supporters’ disapproval rate is just 5%.

In both states, Harris leads among likely black voters (84% to 13% in Georgia, 78% to 19% in North Carolina) and college-educated voters (55% to 39% in Georgia, 53% to 42% in North Carolina). at the top ). The number of white college graduates is roughly evenly split in both states (50% Harris to 47% Trump in North Carolina, 48% Trump to 46% Harris in Georgia). Among white voters without a college degree in Georgia, Trump leads by a wide margin, 81% to 15%. In North Carolina, he leads that group by a less overwhelming margin of 65% to 31%.

In North Carolina, the poll has Trump leading by 7 points among men and Harris by 9 points among women. In Georgia, men prefer Trump by the same majority, but women are more evenly split (49% prefer Harris, 47% Trump). This narrow gap among women in Georgia is due to a massive divide between white women (66% Trump to 30% Harris) and women of color (79% Harris to 15% Trump). In both states, Harris has a large lead among voters who say they live in a city or urban area, while Trump has a similarly large lead in rural areas. But suburban voters in Georgia are split, 48% Harris to 47% Trump, while suburban voters in North Carolina favor Harris, 53% to 42%.

Voters in these two states are the most likely of the battleground states to say candidates’ positions on issues influence their decisions more than their leadership skills and approach to the presidency – 58% in Georgia and 56% in North Carolina say that these topics were more critical for their choice.

Voters in both states likely give Trump the edge over Harris in terms of confidence in handling immigration (by a 15-point lead in Georgia and a 12-point lead in North Carolina), foreign policy (by a 9-point lead points in both states) and the economy (with a lead of 8 points in both states). They give Harris the lead in confidence on abortion and reproductive rights (by a 15-point margin in North Carolina and a 13-point margin in Georgia), with voters in both states having very different opinions on which They trust candidates more to protect democracy.

Voters in Georgia say by an 8-point margin that they see Harris, not Trump, as the candidate who cares more about people like them, while voters in North Carolina are more divided. In both states, Harris is seen as the more honest and trustworthy candidate, while Trump has a slight advantage because the candidate is better able to bring about the necessary changes.

About 8 in 10 likely voters in every state say they are at least somewhat confident that votes in their state will be accurately cast and counted in this year’s election. It’s about 9 in 10 Harris supporters in both states, with 74% of Trump voters in North Carolina and just two-thirds of Republican supporters in Georgia saying the same.

Interviews were conducted online and by telephone from October 23-28, 2024, with registered voters, including 732 voters in Georgia and 750 in North Carolina. Likely voters include all registered voters in the survey, weighted by their predicted likelihood of voting in this year’s election. The results among likely voters in Georgia have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4.7 percentage points; Among likely voters in North Carolina, it is at 4.5 points.