Former President Trump and Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) both said it would be “very hard” to win the general election this fall without coming out on top in North Carolina.
“Just look at the map of the Electoral College…” “We can’t win unless we get North Carolina,” Vance told media on Saturday from the state. “It makes me feel good.”
Vance said that he and Trump are likely to win the rural parts of the state, but that people need to show up because “we know what we need to do.” He said that Vice President Harris’s plans have “failed North Carolina” and were bad.
The Hill’s Decision Desk HQ just said that the North Carolina race is now a toss-up, which is when Vance made his statements.
People used to think that North Carolina would have easily gone for Trump, but now that Harris’s campaign has started, it is seen as a battlefield.
Two events were held this week by the vice president in Charlotte and Greensboro, just a few days before Vance come to visit. How badly each party wants to win North Carolina’s 16 Electoral College votes is shown by how much attention is paid to the state.
A group of studies show that Harris is ahead of Trump by 0.1 percentage points in North Carolina. A poll from Quinnipiac University that came out on Monday said that the race was too close to call for either candidate.
As of now, the race is much closer than it was before Biden stepped down and Harris took over the ticket. In several key swing states, she is scoring higher than Biden.
Trump had a 4.9 percentage point lead over Biden in North Carolina right before Biden dropped out of the race.
People in North Carolina will start getting their ballots in the mail on September 24. After independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. dropped out of the race and tried to get his name taken off the ticket to help Trump in key states, the date has been pushed back from September 6.