(DCWatchdog.com) – In a worrying development for Republicans and a new gain for Kamala Harris, an election forecaster has now classified North Carolina, which was previously leaning towards Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential race, as a “toss-up” state.
A preeminent electoral forecasting authority, Sabato’s Crystal Ball, has updated its classification of the presidential contest in North Carolina to a “toss-up,” highlighting an advancement for Vice President Harris’s campaign, The Hill reports.
Sabato’s Crystal Ball announced on Tuesday the revision of North Carolina from “leans Republican” to “toss-up” status, reflecting a burgeoning support for Harris not just in North Carolina but nationwide.
The election prognosticator now includes North Carolina alongside Nevada, Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan, Georgia, and Pennsylvania as battleground states.
President Biden clinched victories in all these states in the 2020 election, with the exception of North Carolina.
These states have emerged as pivotal in the 2024 election cycle, each having been won by a margin of 3 points or fewer in the previous election.
“This is the first time this cycle that we have moved any electoral votes away from the Republican column into the Toss-up column,” analysts stated.
Sabato’s Crystal Ball also acknowledged an ongoing debate suggesting that North Carolina could be more competitive for Democrats than Georgia in this election cycle.
Governor Roy Cooper of North Carolina, a Democrat, has been considered as a potential vice-presidential candidate for Harris, and the pair has campaigned together recently.
The forecasters noted that Harris is performing better in polls in North Carolina compared to Georgia, yet they anticipate that Georgia will trend more Democratic in the upcoming November elections “despite the polls.”
They argue that the larger African American population and Democratic leaning in Atlanta may outweigh the demographic changes in North Carolina in recent years.
“All that said, both states are close enough — and similar enough to the other key swing states in this election — that we don’t think it makes sense to rate one as Toss-up and the other as Leans Republican anymore,” they remarked.
North Carolina remains the most traditionally conservative among these swing states, according to the analysts, who express skepticism about its potential to shift in favor of Harris. However, they acknowledge this could change in the upcoming two months.
“Now that the election is getting closer and we are almost past the conventions, the polls probably should carry more weight, imperfect instruments though they are,” they observed.
Should Harris sustain or enhance the momentum her campaign has cultivated, “it may be that one or more of these ‘Magnificent Seven,’ to borrow the famous movie title, won’t be Toss-ups anymore.”
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