CNN
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Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are among the likely voters in North Carolina, while Harris has a comfortable lead in Nebraska’s second congressional district, according to two new CNN polls conducted by SSRS.

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

Both places could be crucial to winning the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency. Trump has limited paths to victory if he fails to hold North Carolina — the state where he posted his narrowest margin of victory in 2020 — and a win in Nebraska’s 2nd District would open a path even for Harris through the North’ blue wall’ states. if she fails to carry one of the Sun Belt’s battlefields.

In North Carolina, Harris and Trump are each at 48% of likely voters. In Nebraska’s second district, the so-called blue dot that includes Omaha, Harris has 53% to Trump’s 42%, the poll shows.

North Carolina, which narrowly supported Barack Obama in 2008 and has been in the red in the past three presidential elections, is a state that Democrats hope can become competitive again this year. Nebraska, meanwhile, along with Maine, is one of two states that split the Electoral College votes — with two awarded to the statewide winner, while the other three are awarded separately to the winner of each of the congressional districts of the state.

The Cornhusker State has long been a Republican presidential stronghold, but the 2nd District has awarded its vote to the Democratic candidate twice in recent history, which was for Obama in 2008 and 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-ten backers of both Harris and Trump say their choice is a show of support for their chosen candidate, not just a vote against their opponent. But 12% of likely voters in the state say they can still change their minds about the candidate they support — more than enough to make a difference in a deadlocked race.

Trump currently leads Harris among likely white voters in North Carolina, 58% to 39%, a narrower margin than his lead over Biden among white voters who turned out in the 2020 election, according to CNN exit polls. White voters with a college degree currently favor Harris over Trump by a wide margin, which would mark a shift from the narrow gap among this 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, that doesn’t reflect significantly increased support for Trump — instead, about a tenth of likely Black voters currently say that they support the elections. a third party candidate or are unsure of their choice.

Male voters in North Carolina are narrowly skewing toward Trump (51% to 45%), with Harris holding a slight advantage among female voters (50% to 46%), but the gender gap is smaller than that found in CNN’s most recent national survey.

On down ballots, Harris significantly outperforms 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 discovered inflammatory comments he made on a porn website, is viewed unfavorably by a majority of the state’s likely voters (27% view him favorably, 53% unfavorably, 20% has no opinion). Stein, the attorney general of North Carolina, is less known, but is viewed much more positively (40% favorable, 23% unfavorable, 36% no opinion). The investigation was fully conducted after the CNN report was published.

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

The poll shows Harris with a wide lead in Nebraska’s 2nd District at a near-universal 96% among likely Democratic voters, with her numbers buoyed by the 61% support she has among the district’s independent likely voters , as well as 10% among Republican voters. likely voters. She leads Trump, 60% to 36%, among women, while Trump has a much slimmer lead, 50% to 45%, among men.

Six in 10 likely voters in the 2nd District say Nebraska should keep its current system for awarding electoral votes, while 40% say it should move to a system where the statewide winner receives all the electoral votes. A majority of 86% of likely Democratic voters and 69% of independent likely voters favor keeping the current system, while 69% of likely Republican voters say they would prefer to move to a winner-take-all system the state.

Harris is ahead of the Democratic candidate in the race to represent Nebraska’s second 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 elections, in which Republicans won a narrow majority nationally in the U.S. House of Representatives.

North Carolina voters are likely to give Harris a modest lead over Trump as the candidate who is more likely to unite the country (44% Harris vs. 35% Trump), make them proud as president (46% Harris vs. 40% Trump) and care about people like them (46% Harris, 42% Trump). They are divided on whether Harris or Trump better share their views on the country’s biggest problems, and sharply divided on which candidate would bring the necessary change (44% Trump, 42% Harris) or have clear policy plans to address the problems to solve. problems facing the country (42% Trump, 39% Harris).

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

Trump has an 8-point lead over Harris in confidence in handling the economy among North Carolina’s likely voters, who also side with him on crime and safety (by 7 percentage points) and immigration (by 11 points), but give Harris the edge on protecting democracy (by 4 points) and on tackling abortion and reproductive rights (by 11 points). As in other battleground states, the economy is cited by a large number of voters as the most important issue in the presidential race.

In Nebraska’s second district, Trump sees more erosion on the issues on which he has traditionally posted his strongest numbers: voters there are likely sharply divided between him and Harris, both on the economy and on immigration, and he Harris leads on tackling crime and security (by 6 points), democracy (by 14 points) and abortion and reproductive rights (by 21 points).

Nearly six-in-ten likely voters in the district call Trump too extreme (57%), and about half (51%) say he is extreme enough to pose a threat. Only 36% call Harris’s views and policies dangerously extreme.

And Harris has wide margins over Trump as the candidate who 2nd District voters think would unite the country, make them proud as president and care about people like them, with a narrower lead over him on the other attributes that were tested in the poll.

In both places, the current administration is similarly unpopular — Biden’s approval rating stands at 44% in Nebraska’s 2nd District, and 41% in North Carolina among likely voters. But in the Omaha region, Harris has 20% support among those who disapprove of Biden, while in North Carolina that 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 have a lot of confidence, rising to a 59% majority in Nebraska’s second district.

The Nebraska seat also sees a much narrower partisan gap in election confidence: While Harris’ supporters are 33 points more likely than Trump supporters to express high confidence in their state’s election system, that widens to a gap of 52 points between each candidate’s supporters in North America. Carolina.

From September 20 to 25, 2024, online and telephone interviews were conducted 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 poll, 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; it is 4 points among likely voters in Nebraska’s 2nd District.

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