By Jeff Mason, Steve Holland
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Kamala Harris and Donald Trump will make some of their final election pitches to voters on Wednesday in North Carolina, a Southern swing state with a Democratic governor that has backed Republican U.S. presidential candidates in the past three elections.
North Carolina has 16 Electoral College votes, tying it with Georgia as the second-biggest prize among the seven closely contested states that are expected to decide whether Democratic Vice President Harris or Republican former President Trump wins the election next Tuesday.
A Tuesday Reuters/Ipsos poll showed Harris leading Trump 44% to 43% among registered voters nationally, within the margin of error. Other opinion polls show tight margins in the seven election battleground states. Last month’s hurricane damage has made North Carolina’s results especially hard to predict.
On Wednesday, Harris will be in the state’s fast-growing capital Raleigh, with a population of about 480,000 people, while Trump will hold a rally in Rocky Mount, a city of about 50,000 people.
Trump won North Carolina by under 1.5 percentage points in 2020. He also won the state in 2016 while Republican Mitt Romney won in 2012.
Trump currently leads Harris by just 1 percentage point in North Carolina, according to a polling average by FiveThirtyEight. The last time the state backed the Democratic presidential candidate was Barack Obama in 2008.
Harris on Tuesday night spoke at a rally in Washington, where she warned of the dangers of returning Trump to office. She spoke at the spot near the White House where on Jan. 6, 2021, Trump told his supporters to march to the U.S. Capitol and “fight like hell” after making false claims of a stolen election in his loss to President Joe Biden. Trump supporters afterward attacked the Capitol.
At stake in the election is who will run the world’s richest and most powerful country. Harris and Trump diverge on support for Ukraine and NATO, abortion rights, taxes, basic democratic principles and tariffs that could trigger trade wars.
Talking about trade on Tuesday, Trump mentioned the European Union. “They’re brutal,” he said. “They sell millions and millions of cars in the United States. No, no, no, they are going to have to pay a big price.”
Meanwhile, the Trump campaign late on Tuesday accused Biden of referring to Trump supporters as “garbage,” after Biden spoke about Trump’s New York rally on Sunday that featured racist and other vulgar remarks made by Trump backers.
According to a White House transcript, Biden said: “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporter’s – his – his demonization of Latinos is unconscionable and it’s un-American.”
Biden said later he was talking about the language used, not Trump’s fans.
LONG WAIT FOR RESULTS?
Residents in North Carolina, especially in the rural, hard-hit western region, are still trying to put their lives back together after devastating hurricane damage last month. The Republican-leaning area accounted for about 9% of the vote in 2020, according to an analysis by Republican pollster Patrick Ruffini.
While some state officials – including some Republicans – have praised federal cleanup efforts, Trump has falsely claimed that disaster aid intended for the state was diverted to help immigrants.
Representative Andy Harris of Maryland, who chairs the hardline House Republican Freedom Caucus, said last week that the Republican state legislature should preemptively declare that Trump won the state’s 16 Electoral College votes, to avoid “disenfranchised voters.”
The state’s Democratic governor Roy Cooper said that was not going to happen.
“North Carolina’s electoral votes will be reflected by the votes from the ballot box,” Cooper said on CNN on Tuesday.
The outcome in North Carolina may remain unclear for a week or more after the election.
Absentee ballots that arrive on Election Day, as well as ballots from overseas and military voters, can be counted for up to 10 days afterward.
In 2020, media outlets did not call the result in North Carolina for Trump until Nov. 13, 10 days after the election.
More than a third of North Carolina’s registered voters have already cast ballots in the 2024 election, according to the state’s election board.
Later on Wednesday, Harris will travel to Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, two other election battleground states. Her Madison, Wisconsin, rally will feature performances from musicians, including the band Mumford & Sons. Trump will also be in Wisconsin for a rally with retired National Football League quarterback Brett Favre.
