Fox News handed Vice President Kamala Harris good news in two critical battleground states on Friday as Election Day inches closer.
The network’s latest polling found Harris leading former President Donald Trump in Pennsylvania and North Carolina, although the gap between the candidates remains within both surveys’ margin of error.
In Pennsylvania, Harris was found leading 50 percent to 48 percent, based on the responses of 1,021 registered voters from September 20 to September 24. The poll indicates an improvement for Democrats since Harris took over at the top of the ticket. In the same survey by Fox News in July, shortly after President Joe Biden dropped out of the race, Trump and Biden were tied at 49 percent among registered voters.
Harris was also leading by 2 percentage points in North Carolina, per Friday’s survey, which is based on the responses of 991 registered voters. The poll shows that the candidates have flipped since Fox News’ same poll conducted in August, where Trump was ahead 50 percent to 49 percent.
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Both surveys, however, have a margin of error of 3 percentage points, meaning that the race is still extremely tight. Polling in recent weeks has indicated that the candidates are neck-and-neck in Pennsylvania and North Carolina. Per FiveThirtyEight’s tracking, Trump is up by 0.4 percentage points on average in the Tar Heel State, while Harris leads in the Keystone State by just 1.3 points across polls.
The race in North Carolina is a bit of a surprise for Democrats. The last time the party’s presidential nominee won the state was in 2008, during former President Barack Obama‘s first presidential run. But Harris’ campaign has been boosted by state leaders, including Governor Roy Cooper, who will reach his term limit at the end of the year.
Trump’s campaign in North Carolina has also been clouded by recent accusations brought against the state’s lieutenant governor, Mark Robinson, who was endorsed by Trump in his bid to replace Cooper.
Robinson has been accused of making offensive statements to a porn site years before he ran for public office. The Republican nominee, however, has stood his ground in the gubernatorial race, and Trump has yet to say publicly how he believes Robinson should deal with the scandal.
Matt Mercer, communications director for the North Carolina Republican Party, told Newsweek via email on Friday that Trump’s campaign “feels good about its position” in the state. He added that there “is no data that shows a state race,” such as Robinson’s, “has any material impact on the Presidential vote.”
Both Fox News polls released Friday found that voters trust Trump to do a “better job” on the issues most prevalent to them: immigration and the economy. In Pennsylvania, 57 percent of registered voters said they trust Trump to handle immigration and border security, while just 40 percent said the same for Harris. On the economy, Harris was much closer, but still trailed by 6 percentage points (52 percent to 46 percent).
In North Carolina, Trump was up by 15 points (56 percent to 41 percent) on immigration and 7 points (52 percent to 45 percent) on the economy.
Harris made her case for border security during a campaign stop in Douglas, Arizona, on Friday, her first trip to the southern border since becoming the Democratic presidential nominee, claiming that Trump’s game plan was all “rhetoric” and no “solutions.”
“Let’s not permit scapegoating instead of solutions,” Harris told supporters.