The third Elon Poll of the 2024 election season found that Democrat Josh Stein now has a 21-point lead in the governor race against Republican Mark Robinson and North Carolina is still in a deadlock for the presidential election. The poll also found that Hurricane Helene is motivating North Carolinians to vote, which Director of Elon Poll Jason Husser said is usual after natural disasters.
The presidential election is still tied 46 to 46% between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, which is not a big difference from the Sept. 24 poll.
The poll was made up of 800 registered North Carolina voters, conducted from Oct. 10 to 17.
Early Voting:
Forty-one percent of North Carolina voters said they will participate in early voting this year, while 46% plan to vote in person.
“North Carolina has set a record number of early voting compared to past elections. Early voting is a fairly recent historical phenomenon, not just in North Carolina, but in other states as well,” Husser said.
In the 2020 presidential election, 65.5% of ballots cast in North Carolina were from early voting, according to the North Carolina Board of Elections, which was due to safety concerns during the COVID-19 pandemic.
As of Oct. 29, there were 3,102,408 total ballots cast in North Carolina, showing a 39.7% voter turnout one week before the election, according to the North Carolina Board of Elections. In Alamance County, 46,608 people have voted early and by mail.
After early voting started Oct. 17, over 2,936,297 people voted early and 166,111 people cast their absentee ballots. Over 45% of registered North Carolina Republicans have cast their vote, while 41.92% of registered North Carolina Democrats have voted, according to the North Carolina Board of Elections.
“What's interesting about this election cycle is it's one of the first times we've seen Republicans — particularly Republican campaigns — emphasizing early voting,” Husser said. “A lot of what we're seeing in the uptake in early voting is driven in part by Republican campaigns pushing it.”
Husser said because of this increase, it’s harder to tell how an election is looking based on who is early voting.
In the last general election, people were more likely to vote early due to safety concerns over the COVID-19 pandemic, Husser said. But this year, voters cited convenience or wanting to get it over with as reasons they would cast their ballot early or absentee, while 39% said they would vote early because they have safety concerns about voting at their polling location.
Husser said the trend of early voting is likely to continue in future elections.
“We're seeing both parties really embrace early voting, I think we'll likely see that continue into the future,” Husser said. “There's still, though, for many people, something special about voting on Election Day. The excitement of doing it on the day where it is the National Election Day, much like opening presents on one's birthday, versus two days before.”
Hurricane Helene:
Hurricane Helene has motivated people to vote — 20% said they are more likely to vote.
“When social scientists have studied past natural disasters, they have often found that disasters can increase the amount of civic engagement happening in a community,” Husser said. “That horrible thing like what happened in Helene have a way of pulling people together and pulling communities together, and we're seeing some of that with our data related to Hurricane Helene.”
The poll found that Republicans are more likely to say the response to the destruction of Hurricane Helene was very poor or poor, while Democrats are more likely to say it was good or very good.
“The incumbent governor is a Democrat, the incumbent president is a Democrat and Republican politicians have pointed out probably more so than Democratic politicians,” Husser said. “It also has affected large rural areas. To a large extent, also affected the city of Asheville, but many of the areas most heavily impacted were Republican leaning areas. And I think it's sort of a narrative that had been simmering under the surface for years of rural populations feeling neglected by the federal government.”
Around 59% said they, their families or their close friends have been affected by the damage of the hurricane.
Nearly half of voters said Stein would bring better leadership in recovery after Hurricane Helene, while 27% said Robinson would.
State Elections:
Democrat Josh Stein has increased his lead to 21 points over Republican Mark Robinson compared to the 14-point lead Stein had in the last poll last poll Sept. 24. This could account for the inflammatory comments Robinson had allegedly written on a pornographic site that came to light Sept. 19 — days after the poll had already closed — according to an investigation by CNN.
Seventy-two percent of voters were aware of Robinson’s alleged explicit posts, with 23% believing Robinson did not make those comments. Only 8% of Republican voters said they will now vote for Stein in the upcoming election due to those comments.
“We are definitely finding evidence that Robinson's comments have harmed Robinson. Robinson was already in a bad place before the comments came out,” Husser said. “There's still plenty of Republicans sticking with Robinson, but this is a race where Robinson could not afford to lose any more voters. He'd already lost many voters due to his extreme policy positions. And so what we're finding is that Robinson went from bad to worse, and it also seems that it's now impacting down ballot Republicans.”
Husser said Robinson’s comments have affected voters for other statewide races. The Elon Poll found a slight Democratic lead for certain statewide races, but it was not statistically significant.
Other:
Sixty-two percent of voters also say it is highly likely or somewhat likely that either presidential campaign will try to fraudulently change the outcome of the election.
The poll also found that 54% of voters said the election will have a fair and accurate count of votes, with that being further broken down into 80% of Democrats and only 35% of Republicans.
Democrats were slightly more confident than Republicans that Americans will accept the election results. Over half of voters are very or somewhat concerned that voters will be intimidated or harassed when going to vote.
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