Why North Carolina matters in the U.S. presidential election

Published: Aug 28, 2024 Duration: 00:02:08 Category: News & Politics

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All right, the polls are tight. Both campaigns are spending heavily in North Carolina. You probably see the ads. It is a battleground state and this is one that Trump won in 2020 as you see here over Joe Biden. And it's one that Democrats think they can flip. And if Democrats can flip North Carolina, when you get to that road to 270 in the battle for the electoral college that could be decisive for Democrats if they could ever take the state from the Republicans. So why do Democrats think they have a chance here? Well, the simple answer is you're talking about the suburbs, cities, metropolitan areas, you know the triangle, the triad metro line out where Asheville is, these are places you see their blue on here. They're big, they've got lots of suburbs, suburbs. We see this in North Carolina, we see it nationally. They've been getting more and more democratic since Donald Trump came along and the populations are growing in these areas. So what Democrats think is, hey, they were this close four years ago, I think four more years of population growth and four more years of these areas getting bluer because that's the other thing that's been happening. They've been more and more democratic election to election Democrats think could wipe out what was just a 75,000 vote margin for Donald Trump in 2020. But that's not the only thing that's going on here. Why was Trump ultimately able to win? And why do Republicans think they can hang on to North Carolina? Well, I mean, it's all of the reds you see on here now, a lot of these counties are smaller counties, many of them are very small rural counties, but just as Democrats have been gaining strength in these metro areas. Republicans under Trump have been gaining strength in small rural areas. We've got counties on this map where the margin for Republicans has gone from, say 25 points in their favor a little bit more than a decade ago where Trump is now winning them by more than 50. So it's two competing forces here and which one is going to produce more votes. The surge for Trump in the rural parts of North Carolina or the surge for Democrats in the metropolitan parts of North Carolina. Two very different forces could determine. Maybe the presidency. That's good.

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