Here’s What Happened In North Carolina On Election Day

North Carolina was one of the seven swing states in 2024 – and the first to be declared for President-elect Donald Trump.

Previously, The Daily Wire laid out everything you needed to know about the Tar Heel State heading into the election, so how did things play out?

Polling vs. Final Result

When President Joe Biden was the nominee, Trump polled with a 5-6 point lead in the state, but once Vice President Kamala Harris became the nominee, polling narrowed to give Trump just a 1.5 point lead.

With more than 95% of precincts reporting, Trump won the state by 3.4 percentage points, more than double what polling projected he would win by.

The Counties We Watched

Harris underperformed Biden’s 2020 totals in Mecklenburg County, the metro area around Charlotte; Wake County, the metro area around Raleigh; and New Hanover County, which contains the port city of Wilmington.

Biden won Mecklenburg County by 35.1 percentage points in 2020, but Harris won it by 32.8 percentage points. In Wake County, Biden carried the state by 26.5 percentage points in 2020, while Harris won it by 25.5 percentage points. There were no major drops, to be sure, but the data suggests that enthusiasm for Harris was not as high in 2024 as it was for Biden in 2020.

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It should be noted that Harris won Wake and Mecklenburg counties by larger margins than Hillary Clinton won in 2016 or former President Barack Obama won in 2012. Neither Obama nor Clinton won North Carolina in 2012 or 2016. Biden also failed to win the state in 2020.

The third county, New Hanover, voted for the Republican presidential candidate in 2012 (Mitt Romney) and 2016 (Trump) but voted for Biden by 2.2 percentage points in 2020. On Tuesday, Harris won the county by 0.3 percentage points – and that’s with the influx of residents who moved to North Carolina from blue states during the COVID pandemic.

How Other Candidates Fared

As expected, Democrat Josh Stein won the governor’s race by double digits over Republican challenger Mark Robinson, who was relentlessly attacked for his comments about abortion.

Another hot race was the U.S. House of Representatives battle between incumbent Don Davis, a Democrat, and GOP challenger Laurie Buckhout. Davis was expected to retain his seat in his first term as a congressman – and he did.

Lest one think Republicans did poorly in the state other than Trump, the Tar Heel State voted for Judge Jefferson Griffin to the state Supreme Court. Griffin ran an ad that included a prominent image of a Daily Wire article about a trans-identifying male athlete injuring female volleyball players.

Republicans were also elected statewide to positions related to money, like treasurer and auditor. Democrat Jeff Jackson, however, won the attorney general race.

Key Ballot Measures

There was only one statewide ballot measure on Tuesday: an amendment to the state constitution prohibiting state and local governments from allowing non-citizens to vote.

It won overwhelmingly, with 77.59% of voters approving the measure.