North Carolina rated ‘toss-up’ for November presidential election

( QUEEN CITY NEWS ) — Recent polls have rated North Carolina as a “toss-up” for the November presidential race. Non-partisan election forecaster Sabato’s Crystal Ball made that change from “leans Republican.”

“I think it’s a purple state,” said Prof. Chris Cooper of Western Carolina University. “It’s a battleground state, but it hasn’t done a lot of swinging in the last few years.”

The last time North Carolina voted for a Democratic president was for Barack Obama in 2008.

“Every state that Donald Trump won in the last election, his margin was the smallest in North Carolina than in any of them,” Cooper explained. “2008, the last time North Carolina went for a Democrat, of all the states Barack Obama won, his margin was the smallest in North Carolina than any of them, so we are consistently positioned on the razor’s edge between red and blue.”

With narrow margins in North Carolina, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump have sharpened their focus on the Tar Heel State.

The largest group of registered voters in the state are unaffiliated and convincing them to support a particular candidate’s policies might only be half of the battle.

“Of the three major groups, the Democrats, the Republicans and unaffiliated, unaffiliated consistently have the lowest voter turnout, so it’s about getting them on your side, but it’s also about getting them off the couch,” Cooper said.

At both the Democratic and Republican national conventions, politicians from North Carolina were featured speakers , and that’s no accident. With less than three months until election day, residents can expect things to only heat up.

“Expect your mailboxes are going to be full, your email inboxes are going to be full, that your advertisements are going to be political, whether you’re watching it online or whether you’re watching TV directly, or whether you’re one of the people who still picks up a print paper,” he said. “It’s going to be politics, politics, politics through November, whether we like it or not.”

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