HPU Poll Finds Nearly Half of North Carolinians Prefer Year-Round Daylight Saving Time

HIGH POINT, N.C., March 7, 2025 – The latest High Point University Poll finds that nearly a majority of North Carolina poll respondents (48%) prefer changing to year-round daylight saving time. That would mean a later sunrise and more daylight in the evening.

Only about one-quarter (23%) of poll respondents would prefer an earlier sunrise and less daylight in the evening or changing to standard time. About one in five (22%) said they would prefer to keep the current system of switching between standard time and daylight saving time, which is set to begin Sunday, March 9 at 2 a.m.

Daylight Saving Time was adopted during World War I for its hypothesized energy savings, according to Dr. Daniel Hall, economist and dean of the Phillips School of Business.

“However, proving these benefits has been challenging, especially as the U.S. has become less energy-intensive per GDP dollar,” Hall said. “The benefits have diminished, while the costs of coordination and switching have risen, leading to national discussions on the topic.”

The shift in time for daylight saving can impact the body’s natural cycle, said Dr. Racquel Ingram, founding dean of the Teresa B. Caine School of Nursing.

“Switching between daylight saving time and standard time disrupts the body’s circadian rhythm, affecting both physical and mental well-being,” Ingram said. “Research shows increased risks of sleep disturbances, fatigue, mood changes and even cardiovascular events following time shifts. These disruptions tend to peak during the first few days after the time change occurs. A suggestion to ease the transition is to adjust your sleep schedule by 15-20 minutes each day in the week before the time change, helping your body adapt with minimal disruption. In addition, consider building buffer time into your schedule for morning routines and commutes during the adjustment period, as tasks may take longer when you are adapting to the time change.”

N.C. residents – Daylight Saving Time (March 2025)

Currently in most of the country clocks are set forward by one hour in the spring, called daylight saving time, and are set back by one hour in the fall, to standard time. Which of these do you prefer – change to year-round daylight saving time (later sunrise, more daylight in the evening), change to year-round standard time (earlier sunrise, less daylight in the evening), keep the current system?

Change to year-round daylight saving time – 48%

Change to year-round standard time – 23%

Keep the current system – 22%

Unsure –  7%

HPU Poll 110 was fielded by the High Point University Survey Research Center on Feb. 23 through March 1, 2025 as an online survey using a panel of respondents recruited and maintained by Dynata. Dynata sent invitations to its panel of North Carolina respondents and the SRC collected 1,001 responses (an all-adults sample) on its Qualtrics platform. All respondents were asked two screening questions to identify them as registered voters. A total of 837 respondents identified themselves as registered voters. The SRC did all data analysis. The online sample is from a panel of respondents, and their participation does not adhere to usual assumptions associated with random selection. Therefore, it is not appropriate to assign a classic margin of sampling error for the results. In this case, for the all-adults sample, the SRC provides a credibility interval of plus or minus 3.2 percentage points to account for a traditional 95% confidence interval for the estimates (plus or minus 3.1 percentage points) and a design effect of 1.05 (based on the weighting). The all-adults data is weighted toward population estimates for age, gender, race, and ethnicity based on U.S. Census numbers for North Carolina. The High Point University Survey Research Center (SRC) produces weights through an iterative procedure within SPSS. Factors such as question wording and other methodological choices in conducting survey research can introduce additional errors into the findings of opinion polls. Further results and methodological details from the most recent survey and past surveys can be found at the Survey Research Center website. Materials online include past press releases as well as memos summarizing the findings (including approval ratings) for each poll since 2010.