How Democrats could finally win North Carolina in 2024

UPDATE (Sept. 20, 2024, 10:15 a.m. Eastern): After CNN published a story on Thursday afternoon about racist and salacious online messages allegedly posted by Republican Lt. Gov Mark Robinson, Robinson declined to drop out of the North Carolina governor's race. Read more about polling in the gubernatorial and presidential races in the Tar Heel State below.

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The entire nation will vote on the next president of the United States this fall, but the election will likely come down to seven key swing states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. With the outsized importance of these states, it's worth taking a closer look at the data we have in each of them — not just where the presidential race between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump stands today, but also each candidate's path to victory and what issues could tip the election. First up: the Tar Heel State, North Carolina.

The history

When this election cycle began, pundits generally talked about the election coming down to six core swing states, not seven; North Carolina was a late addition to the party. Take just one look at the state's political history, and you can understand why: Republicans have won the state in 10 of the last 11 presidential elections. Since former President Barack Obama won here in 2008, North Carolina has been a perennial tease to Democrats, who have repeatedly come within a few percentage points of carrying it again but have yet to get over the hump. Even in 2020, when now-President Joe Biden's decisive popular-vote win carried him to victory in most other swing states, North Carolina still voted for Trump by 1 percentage point.

But as the chart above shows, the fast-growing, racially diverse state is slowly trending in the right direction for Democrats. In the 2000 election, it was 13 points redder than the nation as a whole; in 2008, it was only 7 points redder. And in 2020, it was just 6 points redder. If that trend continues, it could just be a matter of time until Democrats carry the state once again.

The 2024 polls

That time could be now. Polls of the 2024 presidential election in North Carolina could scarcely be any tighter. As of Sept. 19 at 10 a.m. Eastern, the 538 polling average of North Carolina is tied. That makes North Carolina, at the moment, the closest state in the country.

If the current polls prove accurate, that would also mark a significant shift leftward for the Tar Heel State. Harris currently leads Trump by 2.8 points in 538's national polling average, so North Carolina appears to be only about 3 points redder than the nation as a whole. Of course, it's always possible that the North Carolina polls or the national polls — or both — wind up being off the mark.

The demographics

North Carolina has become a competitive state thanks to two main demographic factors. First, it has a lot of Black voters: Its citizen voting-age population is 21 percent Black, while the nation as a whole is just 12 percent Black. Black voters are strongly Democratic everywhere, but even more so in North Carolina. According to 2020 exit polls, 87 percent of Black voters nationally voted for Biden, but 92 percent of Black voters in North Carolina did.

Here in 2024, polls suggest Black voters in North Carolina remain about 5 points more Democratic-leaning than Black voters nationally. Eighty-three percent of Black voters in North Carolina support Harris, while 78 percent of Black voters nationally do, according to a straight average of crosstabs of Black support in polls conducted since Aug. 19.*

Of course, that's significantly less Black support than Biden received in 2020, at least according to exit polls. It appears that North Carolina hasn't been immune to Democrats' much-discussed losses among Black voters. So why is Harris polling so strongly in North Carolina? The answer appears to be newfound strength in North Carolina's fast-growing suburbs. According to the 2020 exit polls, only 39 percent of suburban voters in North Carolina opted for Biden — significantly lower than the 50 percent who did so nationally. But according to the crosstabs of recent 2024 polls, suburban voters in North Carolina are now supporting Harris at about the same rate (51 percent) as they are nationally (50 percent).

But Republicans still have one trump card in the Tar Heel State: its significant rural population. According to 2020 exit polls, 27 percent of North Carolina voters lived in rural areas, higher than in all six of the other main swing states. And rural areas in North Carolina have gotten significantly redder since Obama's win in 2008 (in the South, these areas tend to be more religious and conservative than in many Northern states). According to the 2020 exit polls, Biden won only 40 percent of the rural vote in North Carolina. And according to crosstabs of recent 2024 polls, Harris hasn't improved on that at all (although, importantly, she also isn't doing much worse, averaging 38 percent support among rural voters in the state).

The issues

Perhaps because of its late entry into the swing-state fray, North Carolina voters aren't quite as sure as others about how to think about this election: In the latest swing-state poll from Redfield & Wilton/The Telegraph, 9 percent of North Carolina voters said they "didn't know" what the most important issue in determining their vote would be. On average, in the other six major swing states they polled, only 3 percent of voters were undecided on their top issue.

Overall, the issues that voters in North Carolina cared about looked a lot like the other swing states: The top three issues in six of the seven states (including North Carolina) were the economy, immigration and abortion, with the economy pretty far ahead. But there were some key differences in North Carolina that may represent warning signs to Democrats in terms of how they should message in the state.

While the Democratic Party has made abortion one of the key planks of its campaign nationwide, the issue appears to be less salient in North Carolina than in other states. In the same Redfield & Wilton/The Telegraph poll, just 11 percent of North Carolinians said abortion was the most important issue in determining their vote, the lowest of any swing state. (In fact, no other state had less than 16 percent say so; three swing states were at 20 percent or higher.)

And North Carolina voters appear to be more conservative on abortion than the rest of the nation: In a recent poll from SurveyUSA/WRAL-TV, a plurality (43 percent) of North Carolina adults supported a six-week abortion ban, which is stricter than the state's current 12-week ban that has been in place for just over a year (39 percent opposed a six-week ban, and the remainder were undecided). This is significantly different from the national picture. While we don't have national polling from SurveyUSA to compare to, other recent national polls suggest that a six-week ban is deeply unpopular with Americans. In an average of national polls conducted in 2024, 29 percent of Americans said they supported a six-week ban, while 63 percent said they opposed it.

Another significant issue facing North Carolina residents is housing. According to the American Community Survey, the median home price in North Carolina grew from $193,200 in the 2017-19 survey to $280,600 in the 2020-22 survey, the seventh-largest increase in the nation in percentage terms. Recent data from other sources suggests home prices in the state have continued to rise since. And North Carolina voters are paying attention: In a Morning Consult/Bloomberg poll conducted in August, 92 percent of North Carolina voters said that housing would be "very" or "somewhat" important when deciding who to vote for in November.

And despite Harris's ambitious plans to lower housing prices nationwide, North Carolina voters remain split on which candidate they trust on the issue. According to the Morning Consult/Bloomberg poll, which was conducted after Harris's plans were unveiled, North Carolina voters trusted Harris to handle the issue of housing over Trump by only 3 points (47 percent to 44 percent).

The governor's race

Finally, the presidential race isn't the only election worth watching in North Carolina. The state will also elect a new governor to succeed term-limited Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper. But this race, by contrast, doesn't look particularly close. According to 538's preliminary polling average of the race,** Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein leads Republican Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson 49 percent to 40 percent.

Why the discrepancy with the presidential polling? Well, first, gubernatorial races — while they have become more nationalized in recent years — aren't as beholden to presidential partisanship as Senate and House races are (this is how you've gotten Republican Gov. Phil Scott in deep-blue Vermont). And even as Democrats haven't won a presidential or Senate election in North Carolina since 2008, they have won seven of the last eight gubernatorial elections.

But the more acute reason is that Republicans nominated a poor candidate in Robinson, who has a history of making right-wing and offensive statements. Among other things, he has called homosexuality "filth;" defended corporal punishment for children; said women shouldn't be leaders; expressed doubt about the Holocaust; made antisemitic comments about the movie "Black Panther;" and said the civil rights movement was bad for Black schools and businesses. And on Thursday, CNN reported that Robinson made racist and salacious comments on a pornography website's message board.

Some Democrats are even hoping that Robinson's unpopularity will rub off on Trump and cause him to lose the state. However, they shouldn't count on it. It's rare that a downballot race has a significant impact on the top of the ticket.

Footnotes

*Based on polls of likely and registered voters only (if a poll included results among both populations, we used likely voters). If a poll included both a head-to-head matchup between Harris and Trump and a version including third parties, we used the head-to-head version. Finally, if a polling organization (defined as a partnership between a pollster and sponsor, or a pollster alone if their work was not sponsored by an outside group) had more than one survey in the relevant time frame, only the most recent version was included. All polls conducted and released between Aug. 19 and 10 a.m. Eastern on Sept. 19 are included.

**We will release an official polling average for this race soon!