Last North Carolina Polls Before Election Give Biden Cunningham Narrow Leads

Look, Ive been doing this long enough to know that North Carolina polls are basically tea leaves. You can read em however you want. The final batch before Tuesday shows Biden and Cal Cunningham ahead but man, if you’re betting the farm on NC polling data youre braver than me.

NBC News and Marist got Biden up 52-46 with likely voters. Six points sounds nice until you remember 2016. Trump was down in basically every poll and won the state by almost four. This place just… it does what it wants.

Cunninghams Texting Problem

The Senate race is where things got messy. Cal Cunningham was cruising – like double digit leads in some polls – and then the texting scandal broke. Dude was having an affair with a political strategist and the texts leaked. Not great timing when youre running as the wholesome veteran alternative to Thom Tillis.

His lead shrunk to mid single digits basically overnight. UMass Lowell had him at 49-43 which is… survivable? But not comfortable.

Heres the weird part though. Tillis himself tested positive for COVID after that Rose Garden superspreader event for Amy Coney Barrett. Both guys have baggage now. Its like watching two people in a potato sack race except both sacks are on fire.

The Early Vote Thing

Numbers that actually matter more than polls right now: early voting. Over 80 percent of 2016s total turnout already voted by late October. Thats insane. Biden was dominating among early voters by like 25 points. But Trump was killing it with people who planned to vote on Election Day by similar margins.

So you basically have two completely different electorates. The question is which one is bigger. Democrats banked their votes early. Republicans will show up Tuesday. The math either works or it doesnt and nobody actually knows.

Governor Roy Cooper looked safe at least. Double digit leads against Dan Forest. Something in NC was predictable I guess.

Trump cant really lose North Carolina and have a good night. His map gets ugly without those 15 electoral votes. Biden has more paths but winning here probably means hes having a really good evening overall. Whatever happens on Tuesday, count on NC being one of the last states called. They always do this to us.