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When Barack Obama narrowly defeated John McCain in North Carolina in 2008, it marked the first time in decades that a Democratic presidential candidate had won the state. But the Tar Heel State has remained out of reach for Democrats ever since. Obama lost by just two points in 2012, Hillary Clinton by three points in 2016, and Joe Biden by just 1.44 points in 2020, making North Carolina Trump’s narrowest win in the country. (The state’s Democratic Senate candidates have suffered a similar fate in recent years.)
But there are reasons to be hopeful that the Kamala Harris campaign can stop the party’s losing streak. The Democratic base in North Carolina looks much stronger than it has in years past; the polls show the race as close as it gets; and perhaps most promisingly, the candidacy of Mark Robinson, a self-described “black Nazi” Republican gubernatorial candidate whose radicalism is a bit too much even for the modern Republican Party, and whose campaign seems to be in freefall, could take Donald Trump down with him. To gauge Harris’ chances of victory in North Carolina, I turned to Michael Bitzer, a professor of politics and history at Catawba College who has written (and tweeted) extensively about the state’s recent tumultuous politics.
Even before the recent revelations about Mark Robinson, there was a belief that Democrats might benefit from a “reverse grace” — that because Robinson is an extreme figure, more voters might turn against him, giving Democrats an advantage in the presidential election. Do you think there’s any basis for this theory?
What was pretty shocking to me is that the Harris vs. Trump poll numbers are like a coin toss. There is no clear front-runner, as it is within the margin of error. But the numbers show a healthy margin between Josh Stein and Robinson. That means a quarter of Republicans did not vote for Robinson. Is there enough potential toxicity to influence Trump and even influence lower-ranking Republicans? I don’t think anyone will really know until the votes are counted.
The state has a history of electing Democratic governors without voting for Democratic presidential candidates.
That’s exactly right. If you look back 20 years ago in 2004, George W. Bush won the state by 12 points and Democratic incumbent Governor Mike Easley won by 12 percentage points, resulting in a 24-point difference. If you look back to 2020, you see a 6-point difference between Donald Trump and Roy Cooper. This fits into the model and history of North Carolina. The question is, how big of a difference would it take to make this dynamic translate to the rest of the ballot?
And unlike other Southern states, North Carolina elected not the ’60s and ’70s-style Democrats that stayed in Republican-leaning areas, but a more modern Democrat, who may not be as progressive, but who has a more liberal edge.
They’re very centrist. Most of the districts that Roy Cooper won, most of the districts that Trump won, are in rural counties in North Carolina, but they’re also spread out in what I call urban-suburban areas, typical suburban areas that are in urban counties but outside of a big city.
North Carolina is known as a state where Democratic presidential hopes die. There seems to be renewed optimism this year that that streak could end in 2024, and I’ve seen you make that point as well. Why do you think that is? Is it demographics? Is it just that people are getting tired of Trump? Is it Kamala? Or is it a combination of all three?
I think it’s a combination of all of these things. I want to point out that this is a turnout-driven state. Registered Democrats typically meet the state’s turnout, but registered Republicans have consistently led by six points in every major election since 2010. I think there’s a generational dynamic. If voters under 40 have a political edge, and in my analysis they’re a center-left type of voting bloc, that could have an impact. I think it’s a combination of a number of different things that are going on in the state, whether Trump has worn out his welcome, whether Nikki Haley’s primary voters are going to defect and switch political positions and vote for Harris, that could tip the scales over one way or the other.
While some key battleground states haven’t changed much demographically over the past decade, North Carolina has. Democrats are always so hopeful that they’ll have a lot of liberal-minded college graduates moving in, but that hasn’t worked out.
They waited for the demographic wave to peak, but were not willing to invest in resources or infrastructure. Harris appears to have done so. Biden started opening field offices and expanding them. The Trump campaign kind of outsourced the field activities. One interesting change from four years ago is that the split between inner-city and suburban voters has flipped, with inner-city being about 70/30 Democrat. Where voter turnout in inner cities has been low for the past few elections, increasing turnout could attract Democratic votes that have been missing.
And do you think that this infrastructure and all the field offices will help with that?
This is the most ambitious ground operation I’ve seen since Obama’s 2008 campaign.
I’ve read that Trump’s ground war is being outsourced to people like Elon Musk, as you said, which has raised some eyebrows among Republicans. It seems like a very risky gambit, and who knows if it will work. Have you heard anything about that?
It’s certainly a novel approach.
Diplomatically speaking.
They’re leveraging and tailoring their efforts to target less-engaged voters, for example, young white men in rural areas. And that demographic can be influential, because it only takes one point here and one point there to shift the dynamic one way or the other. But if you’re trying to pull in or pull out rural dynamics, and Democrats are getting more support in wealthy inner cities… I hesitate to speculate, because we don’t know how all of this is going to play out until election night.
Do you think the lack of Democratic on-the-ground activism you observed prior to this year was because North Carolina was not a top Electoral College priority for the party, or was it simply due to organizational dysfunction in the state?
Well, I don’t think it was necessarily a dysfunction of the state.
Probably nationwide.
Yes. There has been no priority or commitment, especially by national organizations, to invest locally. For example, in 2022, a Black woman, Shelley Beasley, ran at the top of the list of candidates for the U.S. Senate. You would think that would motivate Black voters, but in reality Black voter turnout was low and Black women had the lowest turnout of any race. The same dynamics play out in each successive election, and if you’re banging your head against the wall five or six times, you have to learn that maybe that wall needs to be attacked in a different way.
This is reminiscent of Florida, where Democrats all but conceded.
Yes. I think Florida is totally locked in. It’s a close state, but it’s very difficult and you really have to invest in it. In North Carolina, I think there’s been recognition this year from Biden and now Harris that, “If we try, we might be able to flip it.” And then Trump has to do a bunch of different things to get those 16 electoral votes from other states. And the map is shrinking every year.
It would put him on the defensive in a place he doesn’t want to be.
That’s right.
There is widespread concern that Trump supporters in Georgia will interfere with the certification of the election results at the county and state levels. North Carolina’s Republican Party is notoriously partisan. We haven’t heard much about fraud at the state level, but are Democrats worried that things could get worse?
North Carolina is unique in that the Secretary of State, who is a Democrat, has no jurisdiction over elections. It is an independent executive branch, with five commissioners: three Democrats and two Republicans, based on the governor’s party. All counties also reflect this split, with three Democrats and two Republicans. So it would be difficult for fraud to take place at the county level.
But if this election is too close, there is a clause in the state constitution that allows the legislature to step in. Article VI, Section 5 of the state constitution says, “Elections for the offices provided in Article III of this Constitution shall be decided by a joint vote of both Houses of Congress.” It’s unclear whether that applies to the presidential election. If you wanted to do an investigation into the results, you’d have a hand in where it would play out.
I don’t even want to think about that possibility.
There it is.
And this is possible because the Republicans hold a supermajority in the House of Representatives by just one seat, right?
And Republicans have a 30-seat supermajority in the Senate: 72 seats in the State House and 30 seats in the State Senate.
And the supermajority in the House of Representatives was made possible thanks to one of the members of the House, Tricia Cotham, who switched from Republican to Democrat, allowing North Carolina to pass a ban on abortions at 12 weeks that Democrats believe is too strict. Do you sense that there will be a backlash and increased voter turnout, just like in many other places around the country?
I think this is definitely an issue that fires up Democrats. In most of the polls that I’ve seen, Democrats rank this pretty highly as an important issue that they want to address in this election. Republicans rank it lower, and independents are in the middle, so it’s less salient, but it certainly energizes Democrats.
But there’s no abortion item on the ballot this year, right?
correct.
In North Carolina, as in other battleground states, presidential polls have been way off, with polls largely predicting Biden to win in 2020, some by pretty wide margins. As someone who has been following this issue closely, how resolved do you think this issue is?
When I teach polling, especially in my Campaigns and Elections class this semester, I tell my students that the margin of victory in North Carolina is likely within the margin of error. It’s simply that close. So, while there are issues with the recent polls, I think it’s best to just accept that North Carolina is a swing state.
In some ways, these polls are meaningless. It’s going to come down to a one or two point race. That’s for sure.
That’s right. We just have to accept our fate and, as I say, let the voters have their say. And the best thing we can do is polls.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
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