Early voting turnout is high this year in North Carolina, with Orange County’s turnout significantly ahead of 2012 and 2008 levels. But who’s winning?

A new survey from Public Policy Polling suggests the early voters are heavily Democratic-leaning – but North Carolinians as a whole remain closely divided on all the high-profile races.

Among those who’d already voted as of Monday, 63 percent had cast their ballots for Hillary Clinton for president, to only 37 percent for Donald Trump. (Gary Johnson’s receiving almost no early votes.) The race for governor is equally lopsided so far: as of Monday, 61 percent of early voters had cast ballots for Roy Cooper, to only 33 percent for Pat McCrory.

Deborah Ross also holds an edge on Richard Burr in the race for US Senate, but by a much smaller margin of 52-34. (Libertarian Sean Haugh got 7 percent of the early vote; the other 7 percent described themselves as “undecided.”)

How well do those numbers bode for Democrats? PPP director Tom Jensen says the early-vote advantage certainly doesn’t hurt – it certainly helped Barack Obama win North Carolina in 2008, when an all-day rain depressed turnout on Election Day – but we shouldn’t read too much into it either. Even though early voting turnout has been relatively high, the vast majority of North Carolinians still haven’t voted yet – and Democrats do vote early at higher rates than Republicans, so the Democratic advantage here isn’t a surprise.

What may be telling, though, is the difference between the races. Jensen says it’s definitely good news for Cooper that he’s polling better than Clinton – but it’s bad news for Ross that her lead on Burr isn’t nearly as big.

Overall, PPP’s latest survey shows Clinton with a 3-point lead on Trump (47-44), Cooper with a 2-point lead on McCrory (46-44), and Burr with a 1-point lead on Ross (42-41). Democrats lead the generic legislative ballot by four points, 46-42 – not enough to retake control of the General Assembly, Jensen says, but possibly enough to keep the GOP from maintaining its veto-proof majority in both houses. (This would be especially important if Cooper wins the governor’s seat.)

Get the full results here.

Nationally, Jensen says it looks like a Clinton presidency is a safe bet – but with well over a week to go before Election Day, it’s still too early to be sure.

Tom Jensen spoke with WCHL’s Aaron Keck.

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