While Kamala Harris is attempting to replicate the 2008 Barack Obama campaign, she likely won’t be able to accomplish what the last two-term Democratic president did that year.
That’s per a new University of Massachusetts Lowell survey, which shows Donald Trump poised to win pivotal North Carolina for the third time in eight years.
The poll of 650 likely voters between Oct. 16 and 23 finds Trump’s lead smack dab in between his 2016 3.66-point margin and 2020’s narrower 1.34-point win.
The former president takes 47% of the vote, with Harris garnering 45%. Four percent say they’re undecided, while third-party candidates Cornel West and Jill Stein take 1%, and another 1% choose the mysterious “another candidate.”
The key for Trump’s vote share, as is often the case in polls where he’s ahead, is winning the battle of the sexes against the vice president. Both candidates take their own genders, but Trump is +12 with men while Harris is only +7 with women.
With only 3% of men undecided compared with 5% of women, Trump theoretically has the room to press that advantage further.
The race divide looms large over this contest also.
Trump takes 58% of white voters, giving him a 22-point lead over Harris, with the remainder undecided or leaning third party.
With black voters, Harris is up 79% to 11%, with the other 10% not committing to either major candidate.
Otherwise, the candidates are performing remarkably evenly in key parts of this sample.
Both have 92% support inside their own party, throwing cold water on narratives that Republicans are crossing partisan lines to rebuke Trump for one rhetorical excess or another.
Ninety-five percent of Harris voters say they’re locked into their choice, while 92% of Trump backers report the same is true of them.
This poll also looked at the race for governor, and as with every survey of Tar Heel State voters, there’s little hope for GOP Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson.
He trails Attorney General Josh Stein 48% to 36% but is struggling particularly with independents, with whom Stein leads him 52% to 13%; 7% back third-party candidates, 27% are undecided, and 2% aren’t voting in the race.
