GASTONIA, N.C. — GASTONIA, N.C. (AP) — Donald Trump plans to rally supporters in North Carolina every day leading up to Tuesday’s election. This is a late effort in the only swing state he won in both the 2016 and 2020 campaigns.
Trump is seeking to expand his electoral guidance and project capacity by visiting New Mexico and Virginia, two Democratic states, while also investing significant time in North Carolina, which last supported a Democratic president in 2008.
The former president’s path to winning the 270 electoral votes he needs to secure the presidency becomes much more complicated if he loses North Carolina. The fast-growing southern state gave Trump his smallest margin of victory, 1.3 percentage points, over Democrat Joe Biden four years ago.
President Trump is scheduled to campaign Saturday in Gastonia, west of Charlotte, and Greensboro, before visiting Salem, Virginia. He will be in the eastern city of Kinston on Sunday and in Raleigh on Monday. These four rallies will bring his total event to North Carolina from October 1-9. His running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, has been in the state six times over the same period, most recently on Friday.
Trump’s Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, is also scheduled to hold a concert and rally in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Saturday. Her campaign has not announced any other trips to the state before Election Day.
Widespread damage from Hurricane Helen across western North Carolina is increasing uncertainty about the state of play there. Flooding destroyed homes and displaced residents in several counties, including the liberal city of Asheville and the conservative rural areas surrounding it.
Trump’s team said it was confident about his chances in North Carolina. Democrats see Trump’s interest in the state as a sign of optimism about Harris.
“Repeated appearances could be a sign that Trump’s campaign is in trouble,” said Democratic state representative Marcia Morey of Durham. “It could be counterproductive if Trump continues the dangerous and violent rhetoric of the past few days. “Campaigns of personal revenge don’t win people’s votes.”
Trump adviser Jason Miller said Trump’s late-campaign travel was not a warning sign.
“I’m not worried about anything,” Miller told reporters Friday. “We have a smart strategy to get President Trump through 270 states, maybe a few states that will surprise you, but we will follow our strategy. Our strategy comes from data and targeting.”
Trump on Fox & In a ‘Friends’ interview, businessman Mark Cuban was asked about the message he was sending to women after he suggested the former president doesn’t surround himself with strong, intelligent women.
President Trump said “women who make men look like babies” have stood up for him and “given women a chance, too.” He mentioned Kellyanne Conway, who ran his 2016 presidential campaign, and Suzy Wiles, his current campaign manager.
He also said he was “so disappointed” in Julia Roberts, who voiced the ad in which a woman hides her vote from her husband. He predicted she would look back on it and cringe. “Can you imagine a wife not telling her husband who she will vote for? Have you ever heard of that?” he asked.
About half of North Carolina’s 7.8 million registered voters had already cast ballots as of Friday, thanks to early in-person voting that ended Saturday afternoon.
North Carolina Republicans are encouraged by rising early voter turnout among their supporters after national and state Republican leaders shifted to a “get ready to vote” strategy this year instead of focusing on Election Day turnout.
Entering the final days of the campaign, more than 50,000 more registered Republican voters than Democrats have voted early or voted, despite there being more than 100,000 more registered Democrats than Republicans statewide, according to state election data. I voted absentee. It’s unclear whether the Republican surge in early voting will increase overall voter turnout among Trump supporters.
Independent voters currently make up the largest group of registered voters in North Carolina. Trump lost ground to independents from 2016 to 2020.
The state’s voters have shown a tendency to split their votes over the years. That’s why Republicans have controlled the state legislature since 2011, while Democrats have controlled the Governor’s Mansion for all but four years since 1993.
Republican hopes of breaking that pressure were dashed on Tuesday after the Republican gubernatorial nominee, Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, received unwanted publicity from a CNN report alleging that he had posted racially explicit and sexually explicit posts in messages from a pornographic website. It seemed to be decreasing over the week. Boarding more than a decade ago.
Robinson refused to write the message last month and sued CNN for defamation, nearly collapsing his campaign and raising concerns that a landslide victory for the state’s attorney general, Democrat Josh Stein, could harm Republican candidates in other races. It got bigger.
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Associated Press writers Adriana Gomez Licon in Detroit and Jonathan J. Cooper in Phoenix contributed to this report.
