RALEIGH – A new High Point University poll shows Democrat Anita Earls at 46% and Republican Sarah Stevens at 44% among likely voters in North Carolina’s 2026 Supreme Court race.
The survey, released Sept. 24 by HPU’s Survey Research Center, puts the candidates two percentage points apart. The poll table also reports 3% for another candidate and 8% unsure. Those rounded figures total 101%.
HPU surveyed 1,003 North Carolina adults through an online Dynata panel. The sample included 813 self-identified registered voters and 706 people who met the poll’s likely-voter screen. The court-race result is based on those 706 likely voters.
The university describes the panel as nonprobability-based and says a conventional margin of sampling error is inappropriate. HPU reports a plus-or-minus 3.9-point credibility interval for likely-voter results. Because the two-point spread is smaller than that interval, the poll does not establish a decisive lead.
The university’s records conflict on the field dates. HPU’s public summary says interviews ran Sept. 6-16, while its technical memo says Sept. 9-16. NC Political News could not resolve the difference from the published materials, so both records are linked below.
Carolina Public Press reported that Earls, the Democratic incumbent, faces Stevens, a former Republican state House member. The outlet said Republicans currently hold a 5-2 majority on the state Supreme Court. A Stevens victory would increase that majority to 6-1; an Earls victory would keep the current partisan balance.
The court hears disputes involving voting rules, redistricting, criminal law, utility regulation and education policy. That gives the statewide race consequences beyond the two candidates, but one survey remains only a snapshot of likely voters at the time it was conducted.
The HPU result should not be treated as a forecast or evidence of movement without a comparable earlier survey using the same method. Campaign events, turnout and voter decisions before Election Day can change the final outcome.
Sources
- High Point University Poll 127 technical memo
- High Point University Poll 127 public summary
- Carolina Public Press: stakes in the 2026 North Carolina Supreme Court race
Photo Credit: Indy beetle via Wikimedia Commons; CC0 1.0 public-domain dedication. North Carolina Justice Building in Raleigh, photographed April 16, 2023. License: https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/
Editor’s Note: This article was drafted with the assistance of artificial intelligence and was reviewed and fact-checked by a member of the NC Political News editorial team before publication.