Biden thinks he can flip North Carolina, polls show a rough road
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[May 02, 2024]
By Jarrett Renshaw
(Reuters) - Since 1968, North Carolina has backed only two Democrats for
president: Jimmy Carter in 1976 and Barack Obama in 2008.
President Joe Biden visits the southeastern state on Thursday for the
third time this year, betting he can do it again for Democrats in the
2024 election.
But opinion polls suggest Biden will have a tough time flipping North
Carolina in this year's rematch against Republican Donald Trump. While
winning the presidency in 2020, Biden lost the state to Trump by 1.3% -
just 74,000 votes - his narrowest state loss.
Biden's campaign is spending heavily on early advertising, voter
outreach and in-state staff, hoping to ride North Carolina's recent
population boom to victory.
Some 400,000 people have moved to North Carolina since 2020, census
figures show, including many people of color and with college
educations, groups that vote overwhelmingly Democratic.
This time, the state's Republican party is embracing far-right
candidates and policies. Its candidate for governor, Mark Robinson, has
supported an outright ban on abortion and referred to homosexuality as
“filth." Democrats believe those hard-line policies can help Biden.
"We are in the best position to win this state in years," said Aisha
Dew, a Biden supporter and Democratic candidate for the state
legislature.
The polls, however, show a tougher path for Biden in the November
election. An Emerson College poll released on Tuesday showed Trump five
points ahead of Biden in the state, while Marist College polling from
March showed Trump leading on issues like immigration.
With a hefty 16 votes in the 538-vote Electoral College that selects
U.S. presidents, North Carolina would be more than a historic flip.
Winning the state could be an insurance policy for Biden, who polls show
struggling against Trump in other battleground states.
A win in North Carolina could help Biden clinch victory even if he loses
Arizona, Georgia or Wisconsin, states he won in 2020 and where polls
show close races this year.
The Biden campaign has poured $30 million into battleground state ads
since early March, including in North Carolina, aimed at groups
including Hispanics and African Americans.
It has been working with state election officials to pre-qualify a list
of acceptable identification for voters, the first statewide election
requiring a photo ID to vote in person.
North Carolina's Republican-led legislature has passed some of the
strictest laws in the U.S. that could limit whose vote counts.
Republicans say these are needed to prevent voter fraud; Democrats say
they are meant to suppress likely Democratic votes.
Biden's campaign has opened 11 offices in the state and had 40 staffers
by the end of the April, aides say, a sharp contrast to Trump, who has
yet to name a state team or open any offices in a state he visited more
than 20 times in 2020. Trump visited North Carolina earlier this year
but had to cancel a rally there last month due to storms.
Trump's campaigning has been limited because he on trial in New York,
accused of falsifying business records to conceal hush-money payments to
a porn star during the 2016 campaign.
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U.S. President Joe Biden delivers remarks on how the CHIPS and
Science Act and his investing in America agenda are growing the
economy and creating jobs in Central New York and communities across
the country, during a visit to the Milton J. Rubenstein Museum of
Science and Technology in Syracuse, New York, U.S., April 25, 2024.
REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque/File Photo
Biden visits Wilmington, North Carolina, on Thursday to talk about
$3 billion in federal funding to replace lead pipes across the
country.
Republicans say they are not worried.
“In 2016 and 2020, Democrats lit money on fire in North Carolina
only to lose to President Trump,” Anna Kelly, a Republican National
Committee spokesperson, said in a statement.
RALEIGH, CHARLOTTE ARE KEY
North Carolina's population boom has been led by people of color,
according to state budget figures, and is most pronounced around the
banking hub of Charlotte and the state capital Raleigh, two of the
fastest-growing metro areas in the U.S.
Many of the new residents are from Democratic-leaning states like
New York and California, according to researchers at the University
of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Mecklenburg County, encompassing Charlotte, and Wake County,
including Raleigh, have added a net 90 voters a day for the past
four years, accounting for 41% of the state's new voter registration
growth for the period, said Paul Shumaker, a long-time Republican
pollster in North Carolina.
"This is the county where the election is going to be won,"
Mecklenburg County Democratic party chair Drew Comer told supporters
when Vice President Kamala Harris visited.
In 2020, Biden beat Trump by 198,896 votes in Mecklenburg County and
167,139 in Wake County, even as he lost the state.
Despite the population boom, there are signs of trouble for
Democrats. Black turnout in the 2022 midterm elections was below
that of the previous midterms in North Carolina, which at 20% has
one of highest Black populations in the country.
Even though Cheri Beasley, a Black woman running for U.S. Senate in
2022, was at the top of every ballot in the state, fewer than 42% of
Black registered voters cast a ballot – the lowest turnout of Black
voters since 2010, according to an analysis by the group Democracy
North Carolina.
A Marist College poll last month found North Carolina registered
voters favoring Trump by 12 percentage points on immigration and
nine points on the economy, with 22- and 17-point leads,
respectively, with independents. Biden held a five-point advantage
on abortion rights and a one-point edge on preserving democracy.
"Mathematically, Biden is in the hunt in North Carolina,' Shumaker
said. "Issue-wise, he has a long way to go to win the state."
(Reporting By Jarrett Renshaw; Editing by Heather Timmons and
William Mallard)
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