A Democratic presidential candidate has not won North Carolina since former President Barack Obama‘s first election in 2008.
But as President Joe Biden returns to the Tar Heel State for the first time since his State of the Union address, his campaign is projecting optimism about his prospects not supported by early polling.
Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris will be in North Carolina on Tuesday to deliver public remarks and attend a private fundraiser. Harris was in Durham as recently as last month, and Biden was in Raleigh in January.
“North Carolina is a top battleground in this election, and the Biden-Harris campaign is investing early to communicate with voters across this state and earn their support,” Biden campaign North Carolina spokeswoman Dory MacMillan told the Washington Examiner. “The choice in this election is clear between [former President Donald] Trump’s losing MAGA agenda and hand-picked slate of MAGA extremists, and Democrats who protect our rights and continue to deliver for working families.”
“We’ll continue meeting voters where they are to earn their vote and share what’s at stake in this election, and that’s how we’ll deliver North Carolina for President Biden in November,” MacMillan said.
Regardless, Trump has an average 5 percentage point advantage over Biden in North Carolina, 50% to 45%, according to RealClearPolitics. More specifically, a Marist College poll this month found Trump had a 3-point edge over Biden, 46% to 43%, with independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy receiving 11% of the vote. Trump had the same lead over Biden without Kennedy, 51% to 48%.
“In 2016 and 2020, Democrats lit money on fire in North Carolina only to lose to President Trump,” Republican National Committee spokeswoman Anna Kelly told the Washington Examiner.
“With President Trump’s record of success in the state and two North Carolinians at the helm of the RNC, 2024 will be no different. Tar Heel State families have felt the strain of Biden’s failures and are ready to deliver for President Trump yet again,” Kelly said of RNC’s two new co-chairs, former North Carolina Republican Party Chairman Michael Whatley and Lara Trump.
Donald Trump won North Carolina in 2020 over Biden by 1 point, 50% to 49%, or 74,500 votes. Four years earlier, Donald Trump won the Tar Heel State over 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton by a greater margin of almost 4 points. Even Obama lost North Carolina in 2012 to that election’s Republican standard-bearer Mitt Romney by 2 points. Obama won the state in 2008 over John McCain by less than a point, 49.70% to 49.38%, or 14,000 votes.
But the Biden campaign is hoping the issue of healthcare, particularly abortion access, will help the president this November, with his trip to North Carolina on Tuesday coinciding with the Supreme Court hearing the oral argument for Food and Drug Administration v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, the case through which the justices will decide whether the FDA wrongly approved abortion drug, mifepristone.
Days after the 14th anniversary of the Affordable Care Act, Biden and Harris will underscore how they claim they are reducing the cost of healthcare, compared to a budget proposed last week by the Republican Study Committee, a House Republican caucus, according to Anita Dunn, a White House and campaign aide to Biden.
“One year ago, thanks to Gov. [Roy] Cooper’s leadership, North Carolina passed Medicaid expansion, helping over 400,000 North Carolinians, and Gov. Cooper will be joining the president and the vice president tomorrow,” Dunn told reporters Monday of the term-limited governor. “That’s the split screen on healthcare you will see on clear display. President Biden and Vice President Harris want to expand access, make healthcare more affordable for everyone, and defend reproductive freedom. Republicans want to gut healthcare, raise prices, and rip away those basic reproductive freedoms, even more than they have already been endangered.”
But with the March Marist College Poll indicating abortion is the wedge issue for only 11% of North Carolina residents, with another 10% citing healthcare, the Biden campaign may not know whether it has a winning strategy until after the Supreme Court rules on mifepristone. Democracy and inflation are the No. 1 issues of North Carolina residents (both 26%), followed by immigration (21%), according to Marist College.
For Charles Bierbauer, dean emeritus of the University of South Carolina’s College of Information and Communications and a former CNN Washington correspondent who has retired to North Carolina, the Tar Heel State is “substantially conservative,” though he acknowledged “suggestions” it could be a purple state this November.
“I don’t see that just yet,” Bierbauer told the Washington Examiner. “Oddly, it elects Republican senators and a Democratic governor. And may elect a Democratic governor again this year.”
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“Part of that may be the character of candidates,” he said of the Republican gubernatorial nominee. “Mark Robinson seems to revel in outrage, not unlike Trump. But I could see some North Carolinians voting for Trump, but not voting for Robinson. On the other hand, if they are voting for Robinson, they are likely also voting for Trump. Not sure that will much help Biden.”
Robinson campaign spokesman Mike Lonergan countered, referencing the Democratic nominee, “The Democrats will stop at nothing to smear Mark Robinson because they know North Carolina voters have had enough of extremism and lies from career politicians like Joe Biden and Josh Stein.”