Since Kamala Harris became the Democratic nominee for president, polls have shown a tight race in North Carolina — with Harris even reversing Biden's position and edging into the lead.
But those same polls have shown a huge gap in the governor’s race, with Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein holding sometimes double-digit leads against Republican Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson.
The most recent poll is from High Point University.
It shows Harris leading Trump in North Carolina, 46-45.
But that same poll shows Stein with a 14-point advantage over Robinson, 48-34.
Other polls have shown a similar dynamic: A statistically tied presidential race, and Stein holding large leads.
Martin Kifer, who leads High Point’s survey research center, said he expects the governor’s race to get closer as Election Day approaches. That’s what happened when Gov. Roy Cooper won reelection four years ago.
“If you go back to 2020 — granted we had an incumbent and Gov. Cooper was relatively popular at that point and so forth. But the polls looked similar to what we are seeing now,” Kifer said.
That is, Cooper with massive leads over former Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Forest — sometimes as large as 19 percentage points in one poll. The average of final polls in the 2020 governor’s race showed Cooper leading by 11 points.
Cooper ended up winning just by four and a half percentage points.
While most political observers are following the governor’s race closely, there are a large percentage of North Carolinians who are undecided. Kifer expects many Republicans to come back to Robinson’s camp on Election Day.
“One of the things that can happen as we get closer to Election Day, more and more people may commit to the lieutenant governor — for partisan reasons, for ideological reasons, for negative partisanship,” Kifer said.
By negative partisanship, he means people will vote against one candidate because the other side supports them.
Here are other recent North Carolina polls:
- The Cook Political Report has Harris leading Trump by 2 points in North Carolina.
- A Carolina Journal/Cygnal poll has Trump ahead by 3.1 points.
- A Carolina Forward/You Gov poll has the race tied in the state.
Robinson was down 4.4 points to Josh Stein in the Carolina Journal poll.
The Carolina Forward poll found something similar. In a poll that showed the presidential race tied, Stein was ahead by 10 points.
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