Donald Trump spent the final days of the closely contested election frequenting a state he won twice before.
With 16 electoral college votes at stake, Democrats and Republicans have both made extensive efforts in North Carolina. Trump essentially made the state his base in his last campaign swing.
Trump and JD Vance have made six stops collectively in North Carolina in the past three days, visiting towns like Gastonia, Kinston and Raleigh. The pair made another collective six stops between Georgia and Pennsylvania in the same period.
Polls ahead of Election Day show Trump and Kamala Harris in a statistical tie in North Carolina. For weeks, it wasn’t clear the polling was impacting Trump’s campaign schedule: the Republican ticket had stops in states that aren’t in play, like New Hampshire, Virginia and New Mexico. The recent discipline and repeated visits to North Carolina are making Trump’s opponents question whether his camp thinks the crucial swing state is slipping away.
“If you were confident, you would be spending a little bit more time in states that you hadn’t won twice in a row,” a spokesperson for liberal PAC American Bridge told NOTUS. “You’d expect the state that is home to the RNC chair and home to Trump’s daughter-in-law would be kind of locked up. But their time there in these late few days shows otherwise.”
Publicly, Trump’s allies are projecting nothing but confidence, pointing to record early turnout from Republicans. As for his many visits in the final days, North Carolina is a state that makes the most sense for Trump to make his closing arguments, they say.
“If you’re just looking at what is the most straightforward path, it’s Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and you’re there,” said Matt Mercer, spokesperson for the North Carolina GOP. “Those three make the math work.”
But, Trump’s campaign has reportedly been nervous about North Carolina, with one official telling NBC News, “If there’s one state that could bite you in the a--, it’s North Carolina.”
Trump’s margin of victory in North Carolina has dwindled over the past two elections, beating President Joe Biden by less than 2% in 2020. Democrats think they’re poised to swing the state, having built a robust ground game. Harris has had a steady presence there as well, most recently speaking in Charlotte on Saturday.
Wayne King, a North Carolina-based GOP strategist, said Trump can’t let his foot off the gas in such an unpredictable state.
“It’s hard for the Trump campaign to sign off on North Carolina and not come back when Harris and Walz are here every day as well,” King told NOTUS. “It offers a path to 270 for both parties.”
Trump’s closing message in North Carolina has been about setting contrasts. He has begun his rallies by asking the audience: “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?”
Much of his rhetoric on Monday was familiar, spanning from immigration to the economy to foreign crises while sprinkling in jabs at Harris. He called her a “low IQ individual.” He also reiterated his call for an immediate new 25% tariff on goods imported by Mexico unless they do something about the “onslaught of criminals and drugs” coming into the U.S.
Republicans in the state believe Trump’s final pitch will go a long way.
And Trump, too, is telling his voters that the ball’s in their court.
“It’s ours to lose,” Trump told the crowd in Raleigh on Monday. “If we get everybody out and vote, there’s not a thing they can do.”
—
Calen Razor is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.