Who Is Winning North Carolina? Donald Trump, Kamala Harris Updates

Former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris are hoping to win North Carolina, and gain 16 electoral college votes.
North Carolina had been seen to shift from a “lean Republican” to a “toss-up” state after Vice President Kamala Harris joined the presidential race in July. Ahead of November 5, former President Donald Trump was predicted to take the state with a 1.1-point lead, according to FiveThirtyEight on October 30.
In 2016, Trump took the Tar Heel State by a 3.6 percent margin. That lead shortened against President Joe Biden in 2020, when Trump won North Carolina by 1.3 percent.
An early exit poll from Edison Research found 43 percent of North Carolina voters had a favorable view of Trump, a slightly lower than in 2020 when 47 percent had a favorable view. According to the poll, 48 percent of voters had a favorable view of Harris. In 2020, 50 percent of voters had a favorable view of Biden.
Polls in North Carolina close at 7:30 p.m. local time. However, voters who are in line by 7:30 will be able to cast their ballot. Follow along with this article for updated information on who’s winning the election in North Carolina.
Which Presidential Candidate Did North Carolina Voters Pick in 2016 and 2020?
Democrats have not won North Carolina since 2008, when former President Barack Obama carried the state. He lost it in 2012 to Republican nominee Mitt Romney.
Trump won North Carolina in both 2016 and 2020. In 2016, he won the state by a 3.6 percent margin over former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Trump received 2,362,631 votes, or 49.83 percent. He was slightly leading polls before the election.
Clinton had flipped just one county, Watauga, to Democratic, making Trump the first Republican to win the White House without the county, which includes the town of Boone, since 1880.
In 2020, Trump won North Carolina against Biden by a 1.3 percent margin, with 49.9 percent, or 2,758,775 votes. Before the election, polls had shown either a tossup or leaning toward Biden.
Biden won 25 out of 100 North Carolina counties, particularly around Raleigh, Greensboro, Charlotte and Fayetteville. He carried eight of the 10 largest counties in the state and overperformed Obama’s margin in 2008 within six of the largest counties, including where Charlotte, Greensboro, Durham and Asheville are.
New Hanover and Nash Counties flipped from Republican to Democrat, and Scotland County flipped from Democrat to Republican.
In 2020, Trump received the most support from voters over 50, while Biden received more support from those under 49.
North Carolina was the only state in the 2020 election that Trump won with under 50 percent of the vote. His victory in the Tar Heel State was his narrowest throughout the country. Biden, who primarily focused on Black voters, had shrunk Trump’s margin in North Carolina compared to the 2016 results.
In the 2016 and 2020 elections, North Carolina had 15 electoral votes instead of the 16 it had in 2024. The U.S. Census Bureau’s population counts from 2020 reset the power within the Electoral College and the House of Representatives. Biden would have still won in a hypothetical redo of the 2020 presidential election with the new electoral voting map, but his margin would have been smaller.
A week ago, polling still showed a tight race between Harris and Trump in North Carolina.
An AtlasIntel poll of 1,665 likely voters in North Carolina showed Harris with a 0.5-point lead over Trump, 48.9 percent to 48.4 percent, in a head-to-head race. The pair are nearly tied at 48 percent in an expanded ballot, which includes Green Party candidate Jill Stein and Libertarian Party candidate Chase Oliver.
The survey was conducted between October 25 and 29, and the results have a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
A Trafalgar Group survey found Trump had a 3-point lead over Harris in North Carolina, 49 percent to 46 percent. The poll of 1,091 likely voters was conducted from October 25 to 28 with a margin of error of plus or minus 2.9 percent.
A survey from Redfield & Wilton Strategies showed that Trump was ahead in North Carolina, 48 percent, compared to Harris’ 46 percent. The poll of 770 likely voters was carried out from October 25 to 27, with a margin of error of 3.2 percentage points either way.
The polling group emphasized that in the seven swing states it surveyed, Trump and Harris’ polling numbers are tied or within the margin of error.
Polling aggregators and forecasters indicated that Trump’s average polling score was marginally ahead of Harris in North Carolina.
Trump’s most efficient route to 270 Electoral College votes would involve winning Pennsylvania, Georgia and North Carolina.
The aftermath of Hurricane Helene was a top priority for 20 percent of the respondents likely to vote, according to an Elon University Poll and YouGov conducted October 10 to October 17.
Almost 60 percent of the state’s registered voters said in the poll that they, their families or their close friends and neighbors were affected by Hurricane Helene’s damages, with 21 percent saying they experienced a lot of impact.
There was a sharp partisan difference among how voters thought government agencies were responding to Helene’s aftermath. Among Democrats, 68 percent said federal and state agencies are doing a “very good” or “good” job. However, only 24 percent of Republicans said they felt the same way. Instead, 57 percent of Republicans said government agencies are doing a “very poor” or “poor” job. Only 12 percent of Democrats felt that way.
When asked which presidential candidate is more likely to provide resources and support for North Carolina’s recovery from Helene, 84 percent of Republicans said Trump would and 89 percent of Democrats said Harris would.
Trump and Harris both visited North Carolina following Helene. During his town hall in Fayetteville, Trump criticized the Biden administration’s response to the hurricane.
“They are doing the worst job on a hurricane that any administration has ever done,” Trump said, pointing to the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s resource distribution efforts.
As of October 29, North Carolina had record levels of early voting, with 3.1 million people casting their ballots before Election Day—about 40 percent of all registered voters in the state.
Republicans represented 34 percent of early voters, and Democrats 33 percent. More early voters were in the 41 to 65-year-old age group, and women outpaced men 51.9 percent to 41.8 percent.
Trump and his running mate, Senator JD Vance, have campaigned in North Carolina 13 times since the final day of the Republican National Convention on July 18. Trump was last there on October 30 in Rocky Mount.
Harris was in the Tar Heel State the same day in Raleigh, marking her campaign’s 10th visit to the state. She has visited North Carolina 20 times since becoming vice president four years ago.
AdImpact, which tracks candidate ad spending, reported that Harris’ team had reserved $2.7 million on October 28 for an ad blitz in the state for the final week of her campaign. On October 29, however, $2 million worth of those were canceled.
Harris had released ads earlier in the campaign comparing Trump to gubernatorial nominee Mark Robinson, who was the subject of a CNN report published in September that detailed his posts left on the website’s message board where he referred to himself as a “Black NAZI,” slammed the late Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. as “worse than a maggot” and said he enjoyed transgender pornography.