Former President Donald Trump has slightly increased his advantage among likely voters in North Carolina over Vice President Kamala Harris with a 2 percentage-point lead (49% to 47%) in the latest ECU Poll released on Monday after the same survey last month had Trump leading by only a single percentage point.
In the current poll, only 2% remain undecided, with another 2% indicating that they plan to support an independent, minor-party, or write-in candidate.
However, in the election for North Carolina governor, state Attorney General Josh Stein, a Democrat, now leads Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, a Republican, 50% to 33% among likely voters, after Stein held only a 6 percentage point advantage in last month's survey.
The poll followed a report earlier this month on comments Robinson allegedly made on a pornographic website's message board more than a decade ago, in which he referred to himself as a "black Nazi" and other inflammatory remarks, which Robinson denies making.
Other results in the poll show:
- Trump continues to lead Harris among men (56% to 40%) — a boost from the 52% to 43% advantage that he held previously. Harris, however, had her lead among women increase to 9 percentage points (53% to 44%) compared to a 5-point advantage earlier (50% to 45%).
- Trump continues to lead among white voters (66% to 32%), while Harris has the advantage among African American voters (90% to 7%). These margins are similar to the last poll when Trump led among whites (64% to 33%) and Harris had an advantage among African Americans (86% to 6%).
- When asked to identify the most important issue in deciding their vote in the election, 30% said inflation and/or the overall cost of living, which remains unchanged from last month's poll. Other top issues in the current survey included the economy in general (25%), abortion (14%), border security (11%), affordability of health care (5%), climate change and/or the environment (4%), and violent crime and/or public safety (2%).
The poll was carried out Sept. 23-26, with the results based on 1,005 completed responses to the poll's questionnaire from a random sample of North Carolina registered voters who are likely to take part in the election.
The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points at the 95% confidence level.
Brian Freeman ✉
Brian Freeman, a Newsmax writer based in Israel, has more than three decades writing and editing about culture and politics for newspapers, online and television.
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