An American Thinker/Rasmussen Reports poll for North Carolina, Michigan, and Virginia shows a tight race but support for Trump on the issues

Rasmussen Reports just dropped a new American Thinker-sponsored poll covering likely voters in North Carolina, Michigan, and Virginia. Each has a different outcome on the presidential ticket, with Trump holding a three-point lead in North Carolina, Harris with a three-point lead in Virginia, and the two candidates tied in Michigan. However, perplexingly, on almost every issue, sometimes by significant margins, voters are dissatisfied with the status quo and trust Trump more.

In all three states, voters agree: The economy is the most pressing problem (NC=42%, MI=35%, and VA=32%). Their second greatest concern is the southern border (NC=17%, MI 15%, and VA=17%). These remain their concerns when asked what the next president should view as his or her most important priority.

Image by AI.

When asked whether they view the candidates favorably or unfavorably, North Carolina voters like Trump more, while Michigan and Virginia voters prefer Harris. All three states see voters believe that Harris has the better character. However, when it comes to opinions about who will be the more effective candidate on the issues that voters identify as most important, it does not appear that favorability or character strongly affects their positions.

Where the likely voters in the three states converged is on their feelings about their overall well-being, threats to America from foreign nations, the border, the economy, and the question of the sexual binary. Only on energy policies was there a slight difference.

In all three states, voters do not believe they are better off now than they were four years ago. In North Carolina, 58% say they’re not better off versus 32% who say they are, while 53% in Michigan say they’re not better off, while 36% say they are. Only in Virginia, home to the federal government, are the numbers closer, with 47% percent saying they’re not better off but a high of 43% saying they are.

In all three states, though, voters say that their children will not do well in the future and that, as a general matter, they do not believe that America is safer now than it was four years ago.

In all three states, the responding likely voters view Harris and the Democrats as the greatest threat to democracy. In North Carolina and Michigan, the voters also saw Democrats as more likely to govern tyrannically, while Virginia voters disagreed.

When they were asked about America’s greatest enemy, all three sets of likely voters ranked Democrats as the biggest threat. In North Carolina, poll respondents saw China as the second biggest threat, with Republicans as the third greatest threat. Meanwhile, in both Michigan and Virginia, Republicans came in second in the threat assessment. In all three cases, when asked only about foreign enemies (China, Iran, Russia), likely voters said that Trump was the more trusted candidate to deal with these threats.

On the border, voters in the three states all leaned in the same direction. They prefer deportation to amnesty by wide margins, believe that the Biden administration has done too little to address border problems, and trust Trump to fix the border.

The same pattern holds true for the economy. When voters view the current administration’s economic policies, those policies make them less favorably inclined toward Harris. They also all believe that Trump is best suited to fix the economy. On that issue, the spread between opinions in the three states is large, with North Carolinians giving Trump a seven-point advantage. In contrast, Virginians give him only a one-point advantage.

The only outlier in terms of trust to solve a problem comes with energy policies. By wide margins, the poll respondents want to see the new administration address energy prices rather than carbon emissions. However, on the general question of “energy policy,” only North Carolinians believe Trump is more trustworthy. In Michigan, voters favor Harris by one point, and, in Virginia, they favor her by two points on energy policy.

Finally, in all three states, a huge majority of voters believe that there are only two genders, and a substantial majority of voters oppose giving surgical and chemical treatments to minors to alter their sexual characteristics.

You can read more from Rasmussen Reports, which also provides the specific data.

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