North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper (D) said Sunday that if Vice President Harris wins North Carolina in November’s general election, “she will be the next president of the United States.”
Cooper told CBS News’ Margaret Brennan that he was confident Harris could win over North Carolina voters and praised the vice president’s frequent visits to his state during his presidency.
“There’s no question,” Cooper said on “Face the Nation” when asked whether “the average North Carolinian is open to being persuaded or watching what happens on the debate stage this week.”
“It’s a narrow margin in North Carolina. It always has been. The narrowest Biden-Harris margin in 2020 was 1.3 percent,” Cooper continued. “So the fact that Kamala Harris has been to North Carolina 17 times as Vice President of the United States shows that she cares about our state. She knows that we’re in a race.”
“She knows that if she wins North Carolina, she will be the next president of the United States because there is no other way for Trump to get there,” he added, referring to the former president and GOP nominee.
Trump won North Carolina’s 15 electoral votes in 2020, beating President Biden by 100,000 votes, or 1.3 percentage points. The state has voted Democratic just once since 1980. In 2008, former President Obama narrowly beat the late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), 49.7% to 49.4%.
Less than two weeks later, the nonpartisan Cook Political Report flipped the state from “Republican leaning” to “voting” in Harris’ favor.
But Trump still leads Harris in the state, according to The Hill/Decision Desk HQ’s average of state polls, by 0.3 percentage points (48.6% to 48.3%).
Cooper, who has been mentioned as a possible Democratic vice presidential candidate, said his polling in the state would improve as North Carolinians learned more about Harris’ campaign and her plans to cut costs and support the middle class.
“As we continue to communicate this information to the American people and to North Carolinians, Kamala Harris has an economic plan that lowers costs for everyday people, helps families thrive, and protects women’s reproductive freedom. I think that’s ultimately going to work here,” Cooper said.
