Vice President Kamala Harris is stepping up her campaign on Thursday by hosting two rallies in North Carolina as she looks to reclaim the crucial battleground state and cut off one of former President Donald Trump’s primary avenues to victory. She is riding a new wave of energy following her debate performance.
According to both campaigns, the state will be crucial in November. It was barely won by Trump in 2020, and since Barack Obama in 2008, no Democrat has won this contest for president. There’s also a hard-fought contest for governor, in which Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein meets Republican Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson.
According to Dory MacMillan, the Harris campaign’s director of communications for North Carolina, “In order to defeat Donald Trump and his allies, such as Mark Robinson, who are promoting the radical Project 2025 agenda to take away our liberties, increase expenses for our families, and reverse the Medicaid expansion that we worked so hard to achieve, voters in North Carolina are building a powerful coalition to elect Vice President Harris.” “This is likely to be a tough contest, but we have developed a campaign to win close races and to engage voters in our cities and rural areas across the political spectrum.”
Within the survey’s margin of error, Harris leads Trump 49% to 46% in North Carolina, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released this week. Although the race is still very close, Democrats have made progress from President Joe Biden’s position in the spring. A Quinnipiac University survey in April saw Trump leading Biden 48% to 46%, again within the margin of error.
According to a Harris campaign official, the team is going into a new, more active phase. Staff members spent all day on Wednesday going over the debate’s film and choosing moments to use in brand-new internet and television advertisements.
The Biden campaign claimed for months that Biden could win North Carolina, but he had trouble surpassing Trump in part because to his inability to inspire younger people. The Harris campaign reports that a record number of volunteers, particularly young adults, are signing up for the state.
According to a different campaign spokesman, almost 20,000 more volunteers have signed up since Harris emerged as the front-runner. Almost 2,000 North Carolinians, roughly a quarter of them were students attending watch parties on campus, registered to volunteer for Tuesday night’s debate, according to the official.
According to Wake Forest University political science professor John Dinan, “younger voters are not engaged in politics to the same level as older voters.” “The problem is, how do you interact with them?”
The extent of the boost that Taylor Swift’s endorsement this week will offer is unknown.
“It will undoubtedly benefit the Harris campaign,” Dinan stated, adding that it’s unclear how much Swift will actually influence things.
According to the General Services Administration, which is in charge of the website, more than 337,000 individuals clicked on a special URL in Swift’s Instagram post within a little over 12 hours following her endorsement. The URL led to a government website that facilitates voter registration. There was no state-specific data available.
The youngest chair of the state Democratic Party, Anderson Clayton, reported that 200 students enrolled for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on Tuesday alone, and that Democrats have registered over 2,500 students at Appalachian State University thus far this year.
The 25-year-old Clayton, who was elected state chair, stated on MSNBC on Wednesday that “young people are not monolithic voters.” “We are concerned about the issues that all other candidates are considering.”
For the Harris campaign, health care has been a major concern, especially in North Carolina. Biden and Harris jointly campaigned here in March, praising the state’s Medicaid expansion. Additionally, Harris promised to wipe off millions of people’s medical debt, and experts in policy say a North Carolina scheme may provide the federal government with a model.
Here, other demographic factors may be important. Black people make up one in five citizens of North Carolina, and the number of Latino voters is rising. Both are important Democratic constituencies. According to a Harris campaign spokesman, the organization has established 26 field offices throughout the state, and six more have opened in rural areas in the past month.
In the meantime, the Trump team is stepping up its own initiatives to win over voters. Republican state spokesperson Matt Mercer contended that superior policies had allowed Republicans to out-register Democrats for years. He queried the amount of work being done in the Democrats’ new field offices and accused them of playing catch-up.
He declared, “Republican leadership in North Carolina has been put to the test and has demonstrated a superior ground game.” “Unlike what the Democrats did in 2020, it wasn’t abandoned.”