WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 23rd October, 2020) US President Donald Trump leads Democratic challenger Joe Biden by one point in North Carolina, a state the incumbent won by almost four percent in 2016, a Rasmussen Reports poll revealed on Thursday.
Trump is ahead of Biden 48-47% in North Carolina, the poll showed, with two percent preferring a third-party candidate and 3 percent undecided.
North Carolina is one of the top ten largest so-called "swing states," where Biden is leading by 1.8% on average in the most recent seven surveys posted on poll aggregator Realclearpolitics.com (RCP) (including today's Rasmussen poll).
Rasmussen has Biden ahead nationally by 3 percent, down from 12% last week. Biden's national lead in the RCP average is 7.8% as of Thursday, a drop of 1.4 points within the past week. However, nationwide surveys serve as only a general barometer of the race because the format of the electoral college requires candidates to win statewide contests, not national popular vote.
Biden is ahead in 10 of the top 12 largest battleground states with less than two weeks before the November 3 election, according to the RCP, although all of his leads are within a typical margin of error - the largest being in Michigan (+7.8%). Trump leads in the largest swing state, which is Texas, by 4% with the former vice president ahead in the next two largest: Florida (+2.1%) and Pennsylvania (4.9%).
