New North Carolina poll shows state could again vote red for president, blue for governor

RALEIGH, N.C. (WTVD) — With North Carolina in the national spotlight for the 2024 Election, a new poll sponsored by Elon University is shedding light on how the races for president and governor are shaping up.

In both 2016 and 2020, North Carolina voters split their tickets — voting for Republican Donald Trump to be president and Democrat Roy Cooper to be governor. Polling suggests a similar outcome could happen in 2024, even without Cooper on the ticket.

The new poll from Elon University found both Kamala Harris and Donald Trump viewed favorably by just about half of voters.

That similar favorability means the presidential race in North Carolina — and subsequently the state’s key 16 electoral votes — is a tossup. This is corroborated by the amount of attention both campaigns have given North Carolina, with each visiting multiple times over the last several weeks.

Polling for the governor’s race is much different. The same responders in the poll favored Democrat Josh Stein to Republican Mark Robinson by a 14-point margin.

“This is not because Stein is exceptionally popular his numbers are about like that of Harris, but rather Stein’s 14-point lead in favorability is because Robinson is far less popular than Trump among both Republicans and independents. The Trump base in North Carolina among Republicans and the Trump-leaning Independents are not going to Robinson at the level that one may have expected early on in this campaign,” said Jason Husser, the director of the Elon University poll.

Trump and Robinson are closely aligned politically and have even campaigned together as recently as last week in Asheboro, but the poll director believes there could be a reason for the difference in popularity.

“Donald Trump is a unique figure in American political history, we will be talking the idiosyncratic nature of Trump in politics for years in the future. Robinson while having some of the same positions as Trump is not Trump, and so we haven’t seen some of that support carry over with other Republicans,” Husser said.

Robinson’s campaign doesn’t believe that difference will hurt his chances, telling ABC11 in a statement:

“Polls have consistently underestimated Republican support in North Carolina for several cycles now and with a large portion of the electorate still undecided as we continue to ramp up our efforts on the ground and on the airwaves, Mark Robinson remains in a strong position to win in November.”

In an era of political division and polarization, ticket splitting is becoming more rare. In fact, 85 percent of North Carolinians polled said they would be voting the same party in both major races, but the poll found about 1 in 6 North Carolinians are open to voting for different parties for President and Governor.

And in a close race, that could be decisive as in was in 2016 and 2020. But who are these Trump-Cooper or potential Trump-Stein voters?

“The people who are splitting their ticket are often people who are not necessarily moderate, they’re not necessarily independents, but they’re not people who define themselves based on their attachment to a political party so closer to the middle than the far right or the far left,” Husser said.

The poll also found that the economy was important to 90 percent of North Carolinians in that poll. It also found North Carolinians are worried about the aftermath of the election, almost 75 percent of voters were concerned about the possibility of political violence after the election.