Vice President Kamala Harris has received encouraging news about her chances in a state that President Joe Biden lost in the last presidential election.

The Cook Political Report announced Tuesday that North Carolina, which former President Donald Trump won by about 1.3 percent in 2020, would be moved from a “leaning Republican” state to an “undecided” state in its latest 2024 election forecast.

The last Democrat to win North Carolina in a presidential election was former President Barack Obama, who won the state by a margin of about 14,000 votes in 2008. His narrow victory was the first Democratic victory since former President Jimmy Carter in 1976.

Amy Walter, editor-in-chief of the Cook Political Report, wrote in an analysis of this year’s election campaign that the forecasts had shifted in Harris’s favor not because Trump lost ground in North Carolina, but because “Harris improved Biden’s share of the vote by seven percentage points.”

“In other words, the race is getting tighter not because Harris is denting Trump’s vote share, but because Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents are coming back to power,” Walter wrote.

An average of recent polls compiled by FiveThirtyEight shows the race in North Carolina dead, with Trump leading Harris by a tiny 0.2 point as of Tuesday night.

Shortly before Biden dropped out of the race on July 21 and endorsed Harris, the FiveThirtyEight average showed Trump with a convincing 6.9 percent lead over Democrats in North Carolina.

One possible sign that Republicans are concerned about North Carolina’s vulnerability is the fact that Trump has spent increasing amounts of time in the state since Harris became his opponent, holding three separate rallies in the Tar Heel State from July 24 to August 21.

Harris has visited North Carolina only once since becoming the Democratic frontrunner, but a planned rally with her running mate Tim Walz was canceled due to weather conditions, and another campaign stop in the state is likely.

Steven Greene, professor of political science at North Carolina State University, said in an email to Newsweek Although Harris could almost certainly win the presidential election in North Carolina even if she lost, it was very unlikely for Trump to do so.

Kevin Wagner, professor of political science at Florida Atlantic University, said earlier Newsweek via email that “the data shows that North Carolina continues to be a competitive state in the presidential election” and that it will “likely be close” in November, although the state still has a “Republican bias.”

Newsweek reached out to Trump and Harris’ campaign teams via email on Tuesday evening for comment.

Election forecaster Sabato’s Crystal Ball moved North Carolina from the “leaning Republican” category to the “undecided” category last week, while noting that this was the first time in the 2024 election cycle that a “leaning Republican” state had shifted toward the Democrats.

The Cook Political Report also moved Minnesota and New Hampshire from the “more likely Democrat” category to the “likely Democrat” category in Tuesday’s presidential election.

Walter attributed the further change of course to Harris in the more conservative states to the fact that the vice president had succeeded in “reforming and strengthening the Democratic coalition” and making these states “out of reach for the Trump campaign.”