North Carolina may be the hottest political battleground of 2024
The most fascinating political chess match in America outside Washington, DC—where the usual game is more like 52-card pickup anyway—is taking place in North Carolina, involving races from the local to the national level. Joe Biden, who is already running campaign advertising in the state, made his sixth trip there as president on June 9th, the same day as Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida and a day ahead of two other Republican candidates, Mike Pence and Donald Trump.
At the state Republican convention in Greensboro on June 10th, Mr Trump called North Carolina “a very, very special place” and boasted of his “tremendous success here”. He chose not to mention that from 2016 to 2020 his margin of victory plunged by 2.3 percentage points, to fewer than 75,000 votes out of more than 5.4m cast. Among the 26 states he won in 2020, that was his narrowest edge. Whereas a Democrat has a plausible path to victory without North Carolina’s 16 electoral votes, a Republican does not.
Having dominated legislative races in rural areas, Republicans have the chance to entrench control: this spring a Democratic lawmaker stunned her party by defecting, thereby providing Republicans with majorities big enough to make law over vetoes by the governor, Roy Cooper, a Democrat in his second term. Republicans won a majority on the elected state Supreme Court last year, removing another check.
2023-06-15 08:20:26
Original from www.economist.com
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