POLITICO Nightly: What the campaign feels like in North Carolina

By Charlie Mahtesian Vice President Kamala Harris gives a thumbs up as she walks off stage after speaking during a campaign rally at East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina, on Oct. 13. | Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images INTERESTING INSIGHT! SOUTHERN SLEEPER — Of the seven battleground states that will likely decide the presidency, North Carolina might be the sleeper. Until Kamala Harris became the Democratic nominee, it wasn’t even considered in play this year. After all, Donald Trump had won it twice already; the state has voted for the Democratic presidential candidate just once since 1976. At the moment, however, North Carolina is looking like a photo finish. The FiveThirtyEight polling average puts Trump ahead by a mere 0.7 percentage points. That’s a big problem for his campaign, since a loss there would blow a gaping hole in Trump’s electoral strategy. Why? Because after decades of non-stop growth, North Carolina now has 16 electoral votes up for grabs — that’s more than Wisconsin (10), more than traditional giant Michigan (15) and almost as many Pennsylvania (19). As part of Nightly’s efforts to illuminate the battleground states that will decide the presidency, tonight we’ll hear from Michael Bitzer, a professor of politics and history at Catawba College in Salisbury, North Carolina, where he directs the Center for North Carolina Politics & Public Service. As the author of Redistricting and Gerrymandering in North Carolina: Battlelines in the Tar Heel State, and founder of the political blog, Old North State Politics , Bitzer is an insightful observer of state politics — and a voice that Nightly pays close attention to. While he grew up just across the border in South Carolina, he’s lived in North Carolina for more than two decades. What issues are dominating the political debate in North Carolina this year? Are they different than in any of the other battleground states? North Carolinians have been focused on the issues that seem to dominate the national conversation in this year’s campaign. The economy and inflation are the leading concern for voters, but beyond that it appears to break down among partisan topics of concern, namely immigration for Republicans versus abortion for Democrats. North Carolina appears to be in league with other battleground states and the issue importance of economics first, followed by a partisan divide regarding other issue priorities. In 2000, North Carolina’s two most populous counties — Wake (Raleigh) and Mecklenburg (Charlotte) — both voted for Republican George W. Bush. Twenty years later, they delivered landslide margins to Democrat Joe Biden. What changed over those two decades? North Carolina’s urban counties have come to mirror national dynamics, with Democrats becoming the dominant party that appeals to urban lifestyles and demographics. Combining the votes out of the state’s major urban areas, such as Raleigh, Charlotte, Greensboro, and other major metropolitan central cities, 2020’s election saw a 70-30 Democratic dominance when combining the US presidential, US Senate, and governor’s contests together. The sheer growth of these urban areas over the past 24 years has had a huge impact on the state’s politics, but contributes to a packing of Democratic votes into these areas that require a special focus to motivate these voters to get to the polls and avoid the complacency of staying at home because these urban centers are so Democratic. With lower turnout rates in urban cities, these counties lessen their impact on statewide races and potentially to Democratic chances of flipping the state at the federal level. After Texas, North Carolina has the largest rural population in the nation. How does that affect the state’s political dynamics? North Carolina’s rural counties have also undergone the national dynamic of a Republican realignment, but the rural areas are not the most Republican region of the state. This is due to the influence of majority-minority counties in the eastern part of the state, part of the South’s historic “Black Belt” line of counties with large populations of Black voters. The most Republican region of the state would be the surrounding suburban counties to the urban counties: they are typically 65-35 Republican, whereas rural counties combined are 60-40 Republican. What are the most notable electoral or demographic distinctions between North Carolina and this year’s other Southern swing state, Georgia? The two states do share some commonality, most notably in the dominance of urban Democratic votes and the generational divide. If Democrats want to win statewide in Georgia, the key is often the 30-30 rule: 30 percent of the White vote goes Democratic, while the overall electorate is 30 percent Black/African American. The other critical component to Georgia politics is the behemoth of the Atlanta metro region and its influence on vote totals. However, for Democrats to win statewide in North Carolina, they must follow a couple of specific Tar Heel politics rules. First, generate critical turnout rates among their core voters, namely Black voters. In the past few elections, registered Black voters in North Carolina have seen a lower-than-statewide average turnout rate, while White voters are above the state’s turnout rate. Registered Democrats typically meet the state-turnout rate, but it doesn’t help when their opposition (registered Republicans) have a five-to-six point advantage in their turnout rates. A generational dynamic is clearly at play in North Carolina: in 2020, the turnout for registered Boomers in the state was 86 percent, while among Millennials it was 62 percent and Generation Z saw a turnout rate of 61 percent. Finally, North Carolina doesn’t have a centralized “Atlanta-metro” dynamic when it comes to vote share, with the major urban areas spread across the Piedmont of the state. What does Donald Trump’s path to victory look like in North Carolina? What about Kamala Harris? Trump’s campaign can rely on a historically better-than-average turnout rate of Republican-aligned voters compared to Democratic voters in North Carolina. But unlike recent elections, that GOP advantage may be tested this year, due to Biden’s and now Harris’ campaign investing heavily in field offices and grassroots GOTV operations. Harris’ campaign appears to have more North Carolina field offices than Obama’s 2008 campaign did, while the Trump campaign appears to have farmed out their GOTV operations to third-party groups. North Carolina is ultimately a ‘battle on the ground’ contest with a very small ‘persuadable/swing voter’ slice to its electorate. This is due to the state’s stark partisan loyalty and polarization, and the real impact that mobilization can have on the statewide electorate. The other key piece to North Carolina is currently an unknown: what do the 250,000 Nikki Haley GOP primary voters from March of this year do on November 5? Trump won North Carolina by less than 75,000 votes in 2020, and any party defections by typical Republican voters at the top of the ticket — for both president and governor — can again provide that small shift in the electorate that could produce significant consequences in the results. If you had to pick the winner of the state and you could know just one number or fact about the racial, ethnic, generational or partisan composition of the electorate on Election Day, what would it be and why? In analyzing North Carolina precincts’ 2020 electorates, there was a clear relationship between older voters and younger voters regarding the Republican vote share in a precinct. As the percentage of Boomers and Silent generation increased in a North Carolina precinct in 2020, the Republican vote saw a significant rise. However, when the percentage of Millennials and Gen Z voters increased in a precinct, the Republican vote saw a significant drop. As noted earlier, if Millennials and Gen Z voters in North Carolina (both cohorts combined are 42 percent of the state’s 7.7 million registered voters) punch up to their political weight, the state could see a fundamental change from its competitive but stuck Republican allegiance at the federal level. Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com. Or contact tonight’s author at cmahtesian@politico.com or on X (formerly known as Twitter) at @PoliticoCharlie. What'd I Miss? HOW MANY INNOCENT UNARMED CIVILIANS WERE KILLED IN THE PROCESS OF NETANYAHU'S LUNACY? HOW MANY HEALTHCARE WORKERS & JOURNALISTS DID ISRAEL KILL IN THE PROCESS? HOW MANY PATIENTS WERE BURNED ALIVE?  — Israel kills Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar as Netanyahu announces war goes on: The Israel Defense Forces killed Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar during a strike in Gaza, Israel’s government confirmed today. 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But campaign finance watchdogs groups are saying “not so fast.” Left-leaning groups End Citizens United Action Fund, the Campaign Legal Center, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and Public Citizen are asking the Federal Communications Commission to clarify its rules regarding the cost of television ads, specifically ones run through joint fundraising committees — a novel practice that some Republican candidates began to employ earlier this year to run ads at a lower cost. — Google to block election ads after polls close on Election Day: Google is reimposing a temporary ban on all election ads in the U.S. after polls close on Election Day in an attempt to reel in misinformation, the tech giant said today. Google said that it expects the pause to last a few weeks and plans to notify advertisers when it’s lifted — similar to how it handled the 2020 vote, when it also blocked election ads. While the policy is in place, advertisers will be prevented from running ads in the U.S. referencing candidates, ballot measures, election processes and outcomes. The pause will not affect public information campaign ads run by state or federal election officials, according to Google. Nightly Road to 2024 AL SMITH SHOWDOWN — Donald Trump will trade the rally stage for comedy tonight as he headlines the annual Al Smith charity dinner , where he was jeered eight years ago while delivering an especially pointed speech. Vice President Kamala Harris is skipping attending the event in person as she campaigns in battleground states, breaking with presidential tradition. But she will appear on screen in a recorded video, organizers said. The white tie dinner in New York raises millions of dollars for Catholic charities and has traditionally offered candidates from both parties the chance to trade light-hearted barbs and show that they can get along — or at least pretend to — for one night in the election’s final stretch. DC JAN 6 LAWSUIT....DC JUDGE CHUTKAN.... DELAY TACTICS — Donald Trump today asked a federal judge to delay the imminent release of a large cache of special counsel Jack Smith’s evidence against him until after the 2024 election. “[I]f the Court immediately releases the Special Counsel’s cherry-picked documents, potential jurors will be left with a skewed, one-sided, and inaccurate picture of this case,” Trump’s attorneys wrote in the filing. “Those same potential jurors may not see President Trump’s later responsive filing.” BAFFLING CONTRADICTION! WEAK TAILWIND — Progressives in Arizona are worried that the state’s abortion-rights ballot measure isn’t giving Democratic candidates the boost they desperately need in the final stretch of the 2024 election. Voters in the battleground suburbs of Phoenix and Tucson are increasingly telling canvassers and pollsters that they plan to vote to overturn the state’s 15-week abortion ban but also support former President Donald Trump, Senate candidate Kari Lake and other Republicans who have a history of opposing abortion rights. TRUMP'S IRRATIONAL COMMENTS DEFENDING PUTIN AGAIN! BLAMING THE VICTIM — Donald Trump blamed Russia’s war on Ukraine on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky y — an escalation of a pattern of sympathetic rhetoric toward the war’s aggressor, Russian President Vladimir Putin. “He should never have let that war start. The war’s a loser,” Trump said, referring to Zelenskyy, on a podcast with conservative commentator Patrick Bet-David published today. The former president added that President Joe Biden had “instigated that war,” which he has repeatedly maintained “would never have happened” if he had been president. AROUND THE WORLD Heads of state pose for a group photo during the NATO 75th anniversary celebratory event on July 9 in Washington, DC. | Andrew Harnik/Getty Images ARCTIC ACTION — The NATO alliance launched plans to develop a military-grade satellite communications network today for the Arctic, aimed at bolstering defense against a belligerent Russia in the north. On the sidelines of a meeting of NATO’s defense ministers in Brussels, a bloc of 13 countries agreed to push forward the Northlink initiative to build out space-based communication systems across the Arctic using existing commercial satellites. The plan involves “leveraging services from communication satellite constellations” to offer up a reliable “multinational communications network for the Arctic,” NATO said. ENEMY’S ENEMIES — Joe Biden took office nearly four years ago on a mission to repair America’s relationship with Europe — and then Vladimir Putin swept in and did it for him. Biden is due to arrive in Germany tonight for a brief visit to both celebrate the new spirit of transatlantic solidarity and discuss what the West can do to hamper the Russian president’s progress in Ukraine. Little since World War II has done as much to tighten transatlantic bonds as the Russian leader’s all-out assault on Ukraine. Yet behind the display of transatlantic bonhomie, the real question is whether any of their efforts will matter in a few weeks. While America’s relationship with Europe might be stronger than ever, it’s also fundamentally at risk. For all the inevitable talk about the importance of the alliance between their two nations, Biden and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz have left the world with a frozen conflict in Ukraine. And in less than three weeks, things could look even worse for the Ukrainians. A victory in the U.S. presidential election by Donald Trump, who has cast doubt on continued American support for Kyiv, and has even refused to say whether he wants Ukraine to win the war, would thrust U.S.-European relations into crisis overnight. Nightly Number $40,000 JD Vance’s speaking fee in the midst of his book tour of Midwestern public universities in 2017. Vance’s requests were negotiated through a speaker’s bureau and talent agency and documented in emails obtained by a public records request and provided to POLITICO. RADAR SWEEP LOVE IN ALL THE WRONG PLACES — In the midst of the most difficult moments of their lives, two people found each other. Colin Cook, while surfing off of Oahu, lost a leg in a shark attack. Sydney Corcoran was watching runners jog to the finish at the Boston Marathon when she was injured in the terrorist bombing. In a rehab facility, the two met each other, took an interest in one another’s mental and physical rehabilitation, and fell in love. For Esquire, Paul Kix tells their remarkable story. Parting Image On this date in 1984: Then-Vice President George H.W. Bush gingerly holds a duck he selected during a campaign swing in San Francisco's Chinatown. | Eric Risberg/AP Did someone forward this email to you? Sign up here.   Follow us on Twitter Charlie Mahtesian @PoliticoCharlie Calder McHugh @calder_mchugh   Follow us

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