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I’ve been asked a lot lately how I feel about this race in light of recent polls. My answer often starts with reminding people about 2016.
That year, I ran for Governor for the first time. I was fighting to unseat Republican Governor Pat McCrory, and nobody had defeated an incumbent Governor in North Carolina for more than 150 years. Despite these odds, I knew we had the team behind us to win and make history.
The polls showed us with a consistent lead hovering around 54% as we got closer to Election Day. We worked hard and took nothing for granted, yet many people let up a bit thinking we had the race in the bag. It was hard to understand what any of it meant for the race.
Then came Election Night and the race was too close to call. We ended that night with about a 5,000-vote lead out of about 4.6 million votes cast.
After a long recount and unfounded claims about voter fraud raised by the incumbent Republican Governor, the results finally came in: We had won the race by 10,277 votes, just .22% of the total.
Now, take a second to think about that. Despite months of favorable numbers, despite the winds seeming to blow in our direction, that race could have just as easily gone the other way. A razor-thin margin like that doesn’t leave much room to rest, no matter how good the polling looked along the way.
I’m glad we won even though I know some of our supporters look their foot off the gas. I learned a lot from that race and I think about it frequently when I look at the numbers coming in today.
So where do things stand now?
I know it can be confusing and overwhelming when different polls seem to tell slightly different stories. I want to walk you through how I’m reading these numbers, why they matter and where things currently stand.
In early September of 2016, right around this same time in this election calendar, I was up around 51% in the polls. Right now, in this Senate race, I’m up right around 50%.
So we’ve been here before.
We know what tends to happen next. That’s why we can’t slow down and will continue fighting hard every day to flip this crucial Senate seat.
What history tells us
The history of U.S. Senate races in our state shows us that the polls will keep tightening as Election Day gets closer. We also know that there will likely be polls that show us the occasional spike that suggests a bigger lead than is really there. It’s tempting, in moments like that, to relax a little and assume everything’s going to be just fine.
But 2016 taught me — and all of us — not to make that assumption. Polls are a snapshot in time, not a prediction of the election outcome. They are helpful to show us trends, along with people’s opinions about our agenda. But a lead can easily evolve into an election night loss, especially when the campaign ends up being outspent. And it’s not just my own experience guiding this caution. Take a look at what happened just last month in Wisconsin Florida and Michigan, where poll after poll showed big leads that led to losses. Those races are recent, real reminders that polling has limits and that a lead today does not necessarily predict the results of Election Day.
So while polls are useful, and give us a real sense of how North Carolinians are feeling and where the race currently stands, I don’t let them affect how hard I work.
Because at the end of the day, polls may tell us what is right or wrong, but they don’t win elections. The hard work we do on the ground — the doors we knock, the phone calls we make and the conversations we have with voters across this state are what really matter. That’s what pushed me through the finish line in 2016, and that’s how we’ll win this time, too.
So if you’re ready to help our team knock on more doors, run more ads and reach more voters so we can win this critical U.S. Senate race, will you chip in $5 today? [ [link removed] ]
Let’s flip North Carolina and take back the Senate.
Thank you,
Roy Cooper

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