Republicans are starting to count Kamala Harris out in North Carolina. They’re feeling confident about early voting, and polls are leaning in Donald Trump’s favor.
Those on Harris’ side are seeing it too.
“I do think Trump has a very slight advantage right now in North Carolina, but it is not an advantage that we can’t overcome,” said Morgan Jackson, a political consultant to state attorney general and Democratic candidate for governor Josh Stein.
Harris aides have reportedly felt the state slipping away. High-level surrogates, like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, have been launched on the campaign trail in final efforts to shore up its voters. The Harris team in North Carolina has ramped up its already robust ground game. They have less than two weeks to convince the unlikeliest voters to get to the ballot box and vote for them.
Paul Shumaker, a GOP pollster and veteran strategist, told NOTUS that Republicans’ optimism stems from early vote totals out of places like Mecklenburg County, where Charlotte is. The county has not surpassed its single-day early vote record set in 2020 yet this year, according to totals approved by the county board. “That’s the second-fastest growing county. That’s problematic for Democrats,” he said.
What does all this mean for Democrats in a state that’s become increasingly crucial to their battleground map? In conversations with NOTUS, strategists and operatives laid out a plan for the final weeks that’s become familiar to close watchers of the Harris campaign.
“A lot of these Republicans are college educated, country club, Reagan, Bush-type voters who are non-MAGA,” Jackson said of whom Democrats will be targeting in the final week. “And it’s a matter of, will any of those voters move to Harris? How many of them, frankly, move to skipping the presidential race altogether? It is a huge win for Democrats if a number of them do.”
Harris’ last visit to the state was a rally in Greenville on Oct. 13 where she encouraged voters to get prepared for the early voting period that would begin four days later. Tim Walz has been in the state twice since, making stops in Durham, Winston-Salem, and Wilmington. Harris spent the last week on a three-state tour across Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin with Liz Cheney, looking to attract the Nikki Haley Republicans. Democrats are targeting similar voters in North Carolina; Haley received over 250,000 votes in North Carolina.
Democrats acknowledge that turnout from their base in urban and suburban parts of the state will be their biggest initiative. But, they’re not keeping their eggs in one basket.
In the lead-up to the election, the Harris coordinated campaign in North Carolina is running field office operations in key rural counties considered GOP strongholds but where Democrats have made gains in recent cycles, including Wayne, Lenoir, Henderson and Burke counties.
Republicans have noticed. Sen. Thom Tillis told Semafor last month that the GOP is facing a “really well-organized” ground game that “we haven’t seen for a time.”
“Our campaign has been doing the work to meet voters in every corner of the state, including rural communities — which is why we have offices in rural areas from Sylva and Hendersonville in the west to Kinston and Rocky Mount in the east,” a spokesperson for the North Carolina coordinated campaign said in a statement to NOTUS, listing some of the issues they are campaigning around: Project 2025, Trump’s tariff proposals and Republicans’ apparent interest in repealing Obamacare.
Top Democratic surrogates are also getting face time with voters in rural North Carolina. Former President Bill Clinton joined Gov. Tim Walz for a bus tour last week. They made stops in Wilmington, Greenville, Rocky Mount and Raleigh. Dante Pittman, a Democratic state House candidate in eastern North Carolina looking to unseat Republican Ken Fontenot, joined Clinton last week at a Bojangles restaurant in Wilson as voters flocked around the former president after realizing who he was.
“There comes a real level of excitement when [Clinton] comes to town,” Pittman told NOTUS. “It was a real chance for him to directly connect one-on-one with some voters. What I hear from folks around here is that when it comes to Clinton and his record in the White House, there is no better messenger on the economy. Sending him out here is worthwhile.”
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan and California Gov. Gavin Newsom visited North Carolina last week as well to mobilize voters and highlight Trump’s history of climate denial amid hurricane season. Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison has also participated in outreach to Black voters across eastern North Carolina and attended a Black Men’s Brunch and canvass lunches in Charlotte, Greensboro and Winston-Salem last Thursday.
“These visits make folks realize that this is one state, a state even where the rural voters have so much more in common with the urban and suburban voters than they may realize,” said North Carolina Senate Democratic Leader Dan Blue. “Everybody ought to get access to the arguments as to why you’re supporting one candidate or the other. They ought to have an opportunity to know where candidates stand on issues, not just secondhand or thirdhand or through paid commercials, but have those candidates come and tell you directly.”
And if all else fails, Democrats are not letting up on elevating both Project 2025 and Republicans’ controversial nominee for governor, Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, as potential spoilers.
“From the presidential race to council of state races, down to court races, down to state legislative races, Democrats are going to Mark Robinson the shit out of every Republican up and down the ballot this fall,” Jackson said.
As for Trump, he made three stops in North Carolina last week including in the Asheville area. He held a rally in Greensboro on Tuesday. JD Vance was in the state Friday.
Trump has attempted to put even more distance between himself and Robinson in recent days; Robinson wasn’t at any of his campaign stops in the state. Trump told Politico he was “unfamiliar with the state of the race,” on Monday.
When asked whether Robinson’s race could drag Republicans down, RNC Chair Michael Whatley told NOTUS that Robinson has a “tough race” and is “fighting an uphill battle” but quickly transitioned to Trump’s strength.
“The early voting period right now is trending heavily Republican versus where it was in 2016 or in 2020,” Whatley told NOTUS. “I feel very confident that we’re going to be able to win this state for the third time.”
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Calen Razor is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow. Reese Gorman contributed to this report.