When Vice President Kamala Harris started talking policy with a heavily promoted speech about voters’ top concern — the economy — where do you suppose she did it?
My home state, North Carolina. And my governor, Roy Cooper, was the Democrat chosen to introduce her on the climactic final night of the party’s convention.
But then Donald Trump stages a rally in North Carolina seemingly every other week — often enough that I’m terrified he’ll build and start hanging out at some Tar Heel analogue of Mar-a-Lago. He’s fixated on this place.
For good reason. North Carolina has 16 electoral college votes — the same as Georgia, one more than Michigan and only one fewer than Ohio. And they appear to be in play. On Tuesday, the Cook Political Report moved North Carolina into the tossup category.
The state hasn’t voted Democratic in a presidential election since 2008, when Barack Obama won, but Joe Biden lost here in 2020 by only about 75,000 votes, or under 1.4 percentage points.
And 2024 is different. Political analysts here tell me that they’re struck by the burst of energy for the Harris campaign and its significant investment in the state, where, according to the Pew Research Center, about 23 percent of eligible voters are Black, in contrast to 14 percent nationally. They haven’t seen anything like it since 2008.
Additionally, Michael Bitzer, a professor of politics and history at Catawba College in Salisbury, N.C., noted that in the Republican presidential primary here, Nikki Haley received hefty percentages of the votes in urban counties even though her campaign by then was a lost cause. That suggests a potent anti-Trump sentiment among moderate Republicans and independents.
There’s yet another distinctive dynamic this time around. The slate of Republican candidates for statewide office is MAGA fury through and through. Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson, the Republican nominee for governor, is a firebrand with a history of misogynistic, homophobic, antisemitic and altogether deranged remarks. Michele Morrow, the Republican nominee for superintendent of public instruction, has suggested that Cooper, Biden, Obama, Hillary Clinton and Anthony Fauci should be executed for treason — and that Obama’s killing should be televised.
Asher Hildebrand, a fellow professor at Duke University’s School of Public Policy, said that while that extremism probably won’t “push too many voters to the polls for Harris, it very well might keep some Trump voters home.”
And in an election potentially decided by one measly percentage point, such disaffection absolutely could turn North Carolina blue.
My home state, North Carolina. And my governor, Roy Cooper, was the Democrat chosen to introduce her on the climactic final night of the party’s convention.
But then Donald Trump stages a rally in North Carolina seemingly every other week — often enough that I’m terrified he’ll build and start hanging out at some Tar Heel analogue of Mar-a-Lago. He’s fixated on this place.
For good reason. North Carolina has 16 electoral college votes — the same as Georgia, one more than Michigan and only one fewer than Ohio. And they appear to be in play. On Tuesday, the Cook Political Report moved North Carolina into the tossup category.
The state hasn’t voted Democratic in a presidential election since 2008, when Barack Obama won, but Joe Biden lost here in 2020 by only about 75,000 votes, or under 1.4 percentage points.
And 2024 is different. Political analysts here tell me that they’re struck by the burst of energy for the Harris campaign and its significant investment in the state, where, according to the Pew Research Center, about 23 percent of eligible voters are Black, in contrast to 14 percent nationally. They haven’t seen anything like it since 2008.
Additionally, Michael Bitzer, a professor of politics and history at Catawba College in Salisbury, N.C., noted that in the Republican presidential primary here, Nikki Haley received hefty percentages of the votes in urban counties even though her campaign by then was a lost cause. That suggests a potent anti-Trump sentiment among moderate Republicans and independents.
There’s yet another distinctive dynamic this time around. The slate of Republican candidates for statewide office is MAGA fury through and through. Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson, the Republican nominee for governor, is a firebrand with a history of misogynistic, homophobic, antisemitic and altogether deranged remarks. Michele Morrow, the Republican nominee for superintendent of public instruction, has suggested that Cooper, Biden, Obama, Hillary Clinton and Anthony Fauci should be executed for treason — and that Obama’s killing should be televised.
Asher Hildebrand, a fellow professor at Duke University’s School of Public Policy, said that while that extremism probably won’t “push too many voters to the polls for Harris, it very well might keep some Trump voters home.”
And in an election potentially decided by one measly percentage point, such disaffection absolutely could turn North Carolina blue.
