As of this morning, in North Carolina, 51.7 percent of early voters are female, 41.2 percent of early voters are male, and 7.1 percent are unknown. Before you run around gasping, “Whoa! Seven percent of North Carolina early voters don’t know their gender!” keep in mind that on a North Carolina voter registration form, the boxes identifying the voter gender, ethnicity and race are optional. (There are only two options, male and female.) So “unknown” means the voter didn’t check either box and the state doesn’t know, not that the voter doesn’t know.

So far, more than 4.4 million North Carolinians have cast their ballots; the state has 7.8 million registered voters – so the state has already hit 56 percent turnout of eligible voters.

In the 2020 exit poll, North Carolina voters split, 56 percent women, 44 percent men.

In the 2022 midterm election exit poll, North Carolina voters split, 53 percent women, 47 percent men.

Mind you, in 2020 Trump narrowly won the state, and in 2022, Ted Budd won over Cheri Beasley in the state’s U.S. Senate race. So, a Republican can win statewide elections in North Carolina when significantly more women vote than men.

No doubt, when all the votes are counted, men will almost certainly make up more than 41.2 percent of the vote. But if you’re the Trump campaign or any other Republican running for statewide office in the Tarheel State, you’d like that gender split to be as even as possible. In the most recent New York Times/Siena poll, North Carolina men favored Trump, 52 percent to 42 percent, while women preferred Harris, 55 percent to 40 percent.

There’s reason to think the Trump campaign is nervous, or at least concerned, about North Carolina. On Saturday, Trump held rallies in Greensboro and Gastonia, then Sunday held a rally in Kinston and then is scheduled to hold a rally in Raleigh today. You don’t hold four rallies in three straight days in a state you feel certain to win.