Kamala Harris and Donald Trump tied in latest North Carolina poll by SurveyUSA
Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are deadlocked among likely voters in North Carolina, shows a SurveyUSA/WRAL poll released Tuesday.
The poll of 853 likely voters, conducted online between Oct. 23-26 and released exactly one week before Election Day, has both candidates at 47%, with 2% of respondents saying they will vote for a third-party candidate and 4% undecided. The result is well within the poll's margin of error of 4.1 percentage points.
SurveyUSA said its most recent poll of likely voters in North Carolina was conducted in September, showing Harris leading Trump, 49% to 46%, with a margin of error of 4.9 percentage points.
Harris leads by 3% among poll respondents who had already voted. People who said they plan to vote by mail favored Harris by 4% and there was a tie amongst those who voted early-in-person. Those who said they planned to vote on Election Day favored Trump by 3%, though 8% of those who said they would wait until the final day said they were undecided.
Harris leads by 7% among women who responded to the poll while Trump leads among men by 6%.
Harris leads in the poll among likely voters registered without a party affiliation by 11%, and among those who say they view themselves as independents by 4%.
Partisan support for the candidates was nearly equal as 94% of registered Republicans supported Trump, with 4% going to Harris. While Harris saw 92% support amongst registered Democrats, there was a larger amount of undecided Democratic voters at 3% compared to 1% of registered Republican undecideds.
The one-in-five respondents who told pollsters they had been affected by Hurricane Helene preferred Trump by a 1% margin and those who said they had not been affected by the storm preferred Harris by the same margin.
Things to keep in mind about polling
A poll's margin of error describes how accurately we can count on the survey results being representative of the entire population.
When a candidate's lead is "inside" the margin of error, it is considered a "statistical tie," according to Pew Research Center.
Pew has also found the majority of pollsters have changed their methods since the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections, where Trump's performance was significantly underestimated.
National polls usually indicate the candidates' standing for the popular vote, but the election will likely be decided by seven swing states due to the Electoral College system. A recent Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll of the swing states also indicates the candidates are in a tied race.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: North Carolina presidential poll shows Harris, Trump tied: SurveyUSA