Thursday, October 15, 2026
B.C. votes in 9 days

North Carolina’s 3rd District

U.S. House · NC-3

Election day November 3, 2026 · forecast of October 15, 2026

Our forecast gives the Republicans a 66% chance of winning, with an average lead of 7.1 points.

Competitive. Chance of a final gap under 5 points: 43%.

Projected vote share

Projection by party

  • Republican 51.6%

    Greg Murphy, incumbent

  • Democrat 48.4%

    Raymond Smith

Thin vertical mark: 2024 result.

Compared with the average

Republican Democrat
NC-3 51.6%48.4%
National averageUnited States 44.2%+7.4 54.5%−6.1

Simple average of the 435 districts, not weighted by population.

Projection track

How the projection has moved

Polls in this district

1 poll

Each poll as the pollster published it; these are not the Vote-Scope projection. When a pollster tests several ballots (with or without a given candidate), each one is shown as a scenario.

Current member

Greg Murphy · Republican

Primary results

Held March 3, 2026 · Official source

Democratic primary Raymond Smith 56.7% 23,552 votes
Republican primary Greg Murphy 0.0%

Who's running

The candidates

Candidates for the upcoming election.

  • Republican Incumbent

    Greg Murphy

    source
  • Democrat Challenger

    Raymond Smith

    source

Previous election (2024)

The Republicans won by 38.5 points.

Our current projection: the Republicans ahead by 7.1 points.

Where these voters came from

This district was redrawn in the 2025-2026 redistricting. Share of its voters from each former district:

  • Former district 3 69%
  • Former district 1 31%

Nearby districts

Party ahead and how sure the projection is.

  • NC-7 Republican, competitive
  • NC-13 Republican, competitive
  • NC-2 Democrat, safe seat
  • NC-4 Democrat, safe seat
  • NC-1 Democrat, toss-up
  • NC-9 Republican, competitive

Watch list

The tightest races

The smallest projected gaps between the top two.

  1. AZ-2Republican52%5.7-point gap
  2. KY-6Republican53%5.8-point gap
  3. VA-1Republican58%5.8-point gap
Forecast updated