One month ago, battleground North Carolina was slipping away from Democrats. Now, with Vice President Kamala Harris at the top of the ticket, the state is competitive once again.
Few states have offered Democratic presidential hopefuls the number of disappointments the Tar Heel state has in recent cycles. It has been 16 years since Barack Obama delivered a North Carolina surprise in 2008 – the first and only time a Democratic candidate for the White House has carried the state in nearly five decades.
The question now is whether Harris will be able to drive up turnout in urban and fast-growing suburban areas in the state, particularly around Wake County’s Raleigh and Mecklenburg County’s Charlotte. Of the 836,000 voters the state has added since 2012, more than a third are in those two counties, which continue to add new residents every day. Biden took both four years ago by about a 2-to-1 margin.
“Whenever people say we’re not competitive as a Democratic state, that’s not true,” said Grayson Barrette, born and raised in western North Carolina, pointing to how Democrats have won seven of the last eight races for governor. “We’re the truest definition of a 50/50 state.”
Even before Biden dropped out, Democrats viewed North Carolina as their best offensive opportunity. In 2020, Trump beat Biden by about 74,000 votes out of 5.4 million cast. The margin of victory of 1.3 points – less than half his spread four years earlier – was the narrowest of any state Trump won.
“I think a lot of people are tired of him,” Barrette, who grew up in a family of Republicans but has become a loyal Democrat, said of Trump. “They really want somebody else and the Democrats are offering that this year. People are noticing and they’re willing to give Kamala Harris a chance.”
