FAYETTEVILLE
\nDonald Trump is heading to North Carolina on Friday for the fourth time in a month, as the Republican presidential candidate tries to firm up support in a state he was winning handily a few months ago but is now among the most competitive in the race.
\nThe former president\u2019s visit to Fayetteville, home to a large military community, comes as the state has been convulsed by literal and political storms.
\nOnce-in-a-generation floods triggered by Hurricane Helene killed dozens in the state\u2019s western mountains, while the Republican candidate for governor has faced damaging reports about past inflammatory and lewd comments.
\nSome Trump allies privately say the race in North Carolina, which Trump won in the 2016 and 2020 elections, is too close for comfort, even as they think he still has a slight leg up on Democratic rival Kamala Harris ahead of the Nov. 5 election.
\nBy some metrics, the vice president is doing marginally better here than she is in Arizona and Georgia, even though Trump lost both of those states in 2020. Those three states are among a handful of battlegrounds that both candidates have a legitimate shot of winning next month.
\n\u201cI\u2019m freaking out about North Carolina,\u201d said one major Trump donor, who was granted anonymity to give his candid assessment of the race. \u201cGeorgia and Arizona are not in the bag, but heading in the right direction.\u201d
\nTrump leads Harris by 0.5 percentage points in North Carolina, according to a polling average maintained by FiveThirtyEight, a polling and analysis website. The former president leads Harris by 1.1 points in Georgia and 1.2 points in Arizona. All of those figures are within the margin of error for major polls, meaning either candidate could walk away with a victory.
\nTrump will also travel on Friday to Georgia, where his campaign said he will receive a briefing with Governor Brian Kemp on local storm recovery efforts and then speak to the media.
\nTrump had been leading Biden by several percentage points in North Carolina before the Democratic president dropped his re-election bid in July and passed the baton to Harris, who has steadily closed the gap with Trump.
\nWhile Trump\u2019s ad spending in the state has been relatively modest compared to most other battleground states, he has hit the campaign trail hard. His four campaign events in North Carolina, including stops in Wilmington and Mint Hill, in the last month are more than those in any other state except for Wisconsin and Michigan, according to a Reuters tally.
\nThe Trump campaign referred a request for comment to North Carolina\u2019s Republican Party. Matt Mercer, the party\u2019s communications director, said the Trump campaign was going as planned in the Southern state.
\n\u201cNorth Carolina is close and has been for several cycles,\u201d Mercer said. \u201cHowever, President Trump has won the state twice, and we are confident we will deliver a third time.\u201d
\nThe vice president also has made frequent trips to North Carolina and is expected in the state again on Saturday.
\nDory MacMillan, a communications official for her campaign, said Harris \u201cis gaining momentum as voters continue to learn more about Vice President Harris\u2019 vision for a New Way Forward where our freedoms are protected and everyone has the chance to not just get by, but get ahead.\u201d
\nAmong the potential headwinds Trump faces is the state\u2019s Republican gubernatorial candidate, Mark Robinson, a Trump ally.
\nIn September, CNN reported that Robinson, a Black man, had advocated bringing back slavery and said he enjoyed transsexual pornography in an online chatroom. Robinson denied making the comments.
\nAnalysts say it is unclear if the Robinson scandal will depress turnout among Republicans on Election Day, potentially hurting Trump. But it will certainly not help.
\n\u201cIt hasn\u2019t necessarily changed voters\u2019 minds, but where I would be concerned is that you want everyone rowing in the same direction,\u201d said Doug Heye, a veteran Republican strategist and North Carolina native, who noted the disarray around Robinson\u2019s campaign was hampering its ability to drive voters to the polls.
\nElection officials, in the meantime, are scrambling to make sure voters in the western part of the state can cast a ballot after Helene destroyed towns and roads and left many residents displaced.
\nIt is too early to measure the storm\u2019s impact on the race, but analysts said the event has made new opinion polls going forward unreliable, as many potential respondents lack phone service or are preoccupied with recovery efforts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
FAYETTEVILLE Donald Trump is heading to North Carolina on Friday for the fourth time in a month, as the Republican presidential candidate tries to firm up support in a state he was winning handily a few months ago but is now among the most competitive in the race. The former president\u2019s visit to Fayetteville, home […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":435412,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-435394","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n