CHARLOTTE, N.C. — North Carolina voters are some of the most powerful in the U.S. when it comes to the 2024 election, a new WalletHub study found.
Tar Heel State has been at the forefront of the 2024 presidential election, with both Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump making multiple trips to North Carolina for rallies. Their running mates, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Ohio Sen. JD Vance, have also made numerous stops in North Carolina to rally supporters before Election Day on Nov. 5.
North Carolina voters are the second-most powerful voters, researchers said. Nevada came in No. 1 overall, with the rest of the top five being Georgia, Arizona and Wisconsin. South Carolina came in at No. 18, but the "vote power score" for Palmetto State voters is significantly lower than North Carolina.
"If you live in one of these states, you could quite literally have the fate of the election in your hands," WalletHub analyst Chip Lupo said.
The winner of North Carolina will earn 16 electoral votes. Trump won the state in 2020 and 2016. Barack Obama was the last Democrat to win the Tar Heel State, defeating John McCain in 2008. You have to go all the way back to Jimmy Carter in 1976 to find the last time a Democrat won before Obama.
How much is a vote worth?
In order to determine the states with the most and least influential voters, WalletHub calculated a "vote power score" for presidential and Senate elections in each state.
For presidential elections, researchers used win probabilities calculated by YouGov and graded each state on a 100-point scale. States that are a true toss-up (50-50), received 100 points. States with a projected one-sided election received a much lower score.
The win probability score was multiplied by the number of electors and divided by the state's populate aged 18 an older. The result was multiplied by 1,000,000 to calculate the presidential election vote power score for that state.
Formula: [(Win probably score x number of electors) / total population aged 18 and older] x 1,000,000