CNN poll: Harris and Trump are tied in North Carolina, while the vice president leads in Nebraska's 2nd District

CNN
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Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are tied among likely voters in North Carolina, while Harris has a comfortable lead in Nebraska's 2nd Congressional District, according to two new CNN SSRS polls.

The North Carolina poll also shows scandal-plagued Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson trailing his Democratic opponent by a wide margin in the state's gubernatorial race.

Both spots could be crucial to either Harris or Trump winning the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency. If Trump fails to hold North Carolina — the state where he had his slimmest margin of victory in 2020 — Trump will have limited paths to victory. A win in Nebraska's 2nd District would even clear Harris' path through the northern Blue Wall states if she fails to carry one of the Sun Belt battlegrounds.

In North Carolina, Harris and Trump are each at 48% among likely voters. In Nebraska's 2nd District, the so-called blue dot that includes Omaha, Harris is at 53% to Trump's 42%, the poll shows.

North Carolina, which narrowly supported Barack Obama in 2008 and has fallen short in the last three presidential elections, is a state that Democrats want to make competitive again this year. Nebraska is now one of two states, along with Maine, that split its Electoral College votes – two of which go to the statewide winner, the other three are awarded separately to the winner of each congressional district in the state.

The Cornhusker State has long been a Republican presidential stronghold, but its 2nd District has voted for the Democratic nominee twice in recent history, for Obama in 2008 and for Joe Biden in 2020.

The vast majority of North Carolina voters say they have made up their minds, and about three-quarters of registered voters who support each of the major candidates say they are extremely motivated to vote. More than seven in 10 Harris and Trump supporters say their vote was a sign of support for their chosen candidate and not just a vote against their opponent. But 12% of likely voters in the state say they could still change their mind about the candidate they support — more than enough to make a difference in a deadlocked race.

Trump currently leads Harris 58% to 39% among likely white voters in North Carolina, a smaller margin than his lead over Biden among white voters who participated in the 2020 election, according to CNN polls. Likely college-educated white voters now overwhelmingly prefer Harris over Trump, which would mark a shift from the narrow divide in that group four years ago.

Harris leads Trump 79% to 11% among likely Black voters, a group that made up about a quarter of the state's electorate in 2020. While Harris' position among likely black voters in the poll is currently weaker than the share Biden ultimately won in 2020, this does not reflect a significant increase in support for Trump – rather, about a tenth of likely black voters currently say that they support him They are a third-party candidate or are unsure of their choice.

Male voters in North Carolina are narrowly on Trump's side (51% to 45%), with Harris having a slight edge among female voters (50% to 46%), but the gender gap is narrower than in the CNN's latest national poll.

In the poll, Harris is comfortably outperformed by Democrat Josh Stein, who leads Robinson, the lieutenant governor, 53% to 36% among likely voters in the North Carolina governor's race.

Robinson, who faced a wave of scandals after CNN exposed inflammatory comments on a porn website, is viewed unfavorably by the majority of the state's likely voters (27% view him favorably, 53% unfavorably, 20% have no opinion) . Stein, North Carolina's attorney general, is less well-known but is viewed significantly more favorably (40% favorable, 23% unfavorable, 36% no opinion). The survey was fully conducted after the CNN report was published.

Robinson faces significant exodus of Republican and likely Republican-leaning voters in the state. Overall, 72% of them support him, while 14% say they will vote for Stein and 12% say they would vote for neither. By contrast, Stein has largely consolidated support among likely Democratic-leaning voters, 95% of whom support him.

In Nebraska's 2nd District, the poll finds Harris' broad lead is a near-universal 96% among Democratic likely voters, bolstered by support at 61% among the district's independent likely voters and 10% among Republicans likely voters are strengthened. Among women, she leads Trump 60% to 36%, while Trump has a much smaller lead among men, 50% to 45%.

Six in 10 likely voters in the 2nd District think Nebraska should keep its current system of awarding electoral votes, with 40% saying it should switch to a system in which the statewide winner gets all the electoral votes. A majority of 86% of likely Democratic voters and 69% of likely independent voters support keeping the current system, while 69% of likely Republican voters say they would prefer to switch to a winner-take-all system in the state everyone wins.

Harris is ahead of the Democratic nominee in the race to represent Nebraska's 2nd District in Congress, with Democrat Tony Vargas holding a narrow lead over incumbent Republican Rep. Don Bacon, 50% to 44%. Vargas, a state senator, lost to Bacon by less than three points in the 2022 election, in which Republicans nationwide won a slim majority in the U.S. House of Representatives.

North Carolina voters are likely to give Harris a modest edge over Trump, as he is the candidate more likely to unite the country (44% Harris vs. 35% Trump) and make them proud as president (46% Harris versus 40% Trump) and they like caring for people (46% Harris, 42% Trump). They are equally divided over whether Harris or Trump are more likely to share their view of the country's biggest problems and are divided over which candidate would bring needed change (44% Trump, 42% Harris) or clear policy plans to solve them of the problem has problems in the country (42% Trump, 39% Harris).

A 52 percent majority of likely voters in North Carolina think Trump's views and policies are too extreme, but a smaller majority of 45 percent say they are so extreme that they threaten the country. Fewer see Harris' policies as dangerously extreme (35%).

Trump has an 8-point lead over Harris when it comes to confidence in handling the economy among North Carolina's likely voters, who are also up on issues of crime and safety (by 7 percentage points) and immigration (by 11 points). his side, but Harris has a lead on protecting democracy (by 4 points) and on addressing abortion and reproductive rights (by 11 points). As in other battleground states, the economy is cited by a majority of voters as the most important issue in the presidential campaign.

In Nebraska's 2nd District, Trump is seeing greater erosion on the issues on which he has traditionally posted his strongest numbers: Voters there are likely sharply divided between him and Harris on both the economy and immigration, giving Harris the lead in dealing with crime and security (down 6 points), democracy (down 14 points) and abortion and reproductive rights (down 21 points).

Nearly six in 10 likely voters in the district think Trump is too extreme (57%), and about half (51%) say he is extreme enough to pose a threat. Only 36% describe Harris' views and policies as dangerously extreme.

And Harris has a big lead over Trump as the candidate who voters in the 2nd District believe would unite the country, make them proud as president and care about people like them, ranking higher with the rest in the poll tested properties has smaller advantages.

The current administration is equally unpopular in both places – Biden's approval rating is 44% in Nebraska's 2nd District and 41% of likely voters in North Carolina. But in the Omaha area, Harris gets 20% of voters rejecting Biden, while in North Carolina that share drops to 14%.

The vast majority of likely voters in both North Carolina and Nebraska's 2nd District say they are at least somewhat confident that votes in their state will be accurately cast and counted in this year's presidential election. But only 41% in North Carolina say they are very confident, rising to 59% in Nebraska's 2nd District.

In the seat of Nebraska, the partisan gap in voting confidence is also far narrower: While Harris supporters are 33 points more likely than Trump supporters to express high confidence in their state's electoral system, it is widening the gap between supporters of each candidate in North Carolina is 52 points.

Interviews were conducted online and by telephone from September 20 to 25, 2024, with registered voters, including 931 voters in North Carolina and 749 in Nebraska's 2nd Congressional District. 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 North Carolina have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.9 percentage points; Among likely voters in Nebraska's 2nd District it's 4 points.

CNN's Jennifer Agiesta and Edward Wu contributed to this report.