Trump will spend every day until the election in North Carolina, a swing state he won twice

RALEIGH, N.C. — RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Donald Trump will rally supporters in North Carolina every day until Tuesday’s election, a flurry of late activity in the only swing state he won in both his 2016 and 2020 campaigns.

Even as Trump wants to expand the electoral map and increase the power of his projects travel to New Mexico and Virginiatwo Democratic states that are not generally considered competitive, he spends a lot of time on North Carolina, which last supported a Democrat for president in 2008.

The former president’s path to the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency will become significantly more complicated if he loses North Carolina. The fast-growing southern state gave Trump his smallest margin of victory — 1.3 percentage points — over Democrat Joe Biden four years ago.

Trump will campaign Saturday in Gastonia, west of Charlotte, and Greensboro, with a stop in Salem, Virginia, in between. He will be in the eastern city of Kinston on Sunday and in Raleigh on Monday. Those four rallies will bring his total number of events in North Carolina since Oct. 1 to nine. His running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, has been to the state six times in the same period, most recently on Friday.

Vice President Kamala HarrisTrump’s Democratic rival, will also be in North Carolina on Saturday for a concert and rally in Charlotte. Her campaign has not announced any other trips to the state before Election Day.

The great damage of Hurricane Helene in western North Carolina has one dose of uncertainty about the state of affairs here. Floods destroyed homes and displaced people in several counties, including the liberal city of Asheville and the conservative rural areas surrounding it.

Trump’s team has said it is confident in its chances in North Carolina. Democrats see Trump’s attention to the state as a signal of optimism for Harris.

“The repeated appearances may indicate that Trump’s campaign is in trouble,” said Democratic state Rep. Marcia Morey of Durham. “If Trump continues his dangerous, violent rhetoric in recent days, it could backfire. A campaign of personal retaliation does not win people’s votes.”

Trump adviser Jason Miller said Trump’s late campaign trips are not a red flag.

“I’m not worried about anything,” Miller told reporters Friday. “We have a smart strategy that will take President Trump through 270 states, maybe even a few surprise states that end up in there. But we are going to follow our strategy. Our strategy comes from our data and our targeting.”

About half of North Carolina’s 7.8 million registered voters had already voted Friday, buoyed by the ballot early personal mood, which ends on Saturday afternoon.

North Carolina Republicans are encouraged by early turnout among their supporters after national and state GOP leaders shifted to a “bank your vote” strategy this year rather than focusing on Election Day turnout.

As the campaign begins its final days, more than 50,000 more Republican registered voters than Democrats had voted early or absentee, even though there are more than 100,000 registered Democrats statewide than Republicans, according to state election data. It is unclear whether Republicans’ early turnout will result in higher overall turnout for Trump supporters.

Independent voters now make up the largest group of registered voters in North Carolina. Trump lost ground to independents between 2016 and 2020.

The state’s voters have shown a tendency to divide their fortunes over the years. That’s why, while Republicans have controlled the state legislature since 2011, Democrats have held the governor’s mansion for all but four years since 1993.

The Republican Party’s hopes of breaking that hold Tuesday appeared to have diminished in recent weeks after the party’s candidate for governor, Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, received unwanted publicity from a CNN report alleging that he made explicit racist and had placed sexual messages in the message of a pornographic website. on board more than ten years ago.

While Robinson denied writing the posts and last month sued CNN for defamation, his campaign almost imploded, fears are growing that a big victory by Democrat Josh Stein, the state’s attorney general, could hurt GOP candidates in other races.

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Associated Press writers Adriana Gomez Licon in Detroit and Jonathan J. Cooper in Phoenix contributed to this report.