Governor Cooper is confident VP Harris will swing NC blue.
North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper recently proclaimed presidential hopeful and Vice President Kamala Harris as “the next president of the United States.” While there are multiple paths to victory for Harris, capturing North Carolina this November would likely ensure her the number of electoral college votes she needs.
While speaking to “Face The Nation, ” when asked whether or not the citizens of the swing state (which hasn’t gone blue since 2008 for President Obama) might do so for Harris, Cooper replied: “There’s no question about it.”
“It’s close here in North Carolina. It always is,” Cooper continued. “This was Biden-Harris’s closest loss in 2020, only 1.3 percent, so the fact that Kamala Harris, as Vice President of the United States, has been to North Carolina 17 times shows that she cares about our state. She knows that we are in play.”
There have been close calls in the last twenty years when the state has come to making a choice for the highest office in the United States. The previous example mentioned, which pitted Obama in his first run against the late Sen. John McCain, was a toss-up which landed in Obama’s favor by slivers of a point – 49.7 percent to 49.4 percent. In the 2020 election, Trump narrowly won North Carolina over President Biden by a 1.3 percent difference, resulting from less than 100,000 votes.
Following the recent debate between Harris and Trump, it appears Cooper might have the right call. After what could be seen as a crushing defeat by Harris over Trump, the polls reacted quickly. According to the national Morning Consult poll the following day, Harris led by nearly four points. As of September 17, she leads nationally by six points in the same survey. In North Carolina, she has substantially closed the gap between the two candidates to a near statistical tie. Trump is ahead of Harris now by only half a percentage point in the Tarheel State.
While a majority of Harris’s support does come from Democrats, with independent voters, she leads with 46 points in opposition to his 40, as per the survey. However, as the Morning Consult gave the new ratings, it also provided a message of caution.
“It’s too early to say whether Harris’ debate performance is the key driver of our latest head-to-head numbers, as our short-term trends suggest she was already building momentum ahead of [the] televised match-up.”
Harris continues to pound away at the state after the debate, touching down this past September 12 for a campaign event in Charlotte. Still carrying all of the triumphant airs from the previous debate, the stakes are no less clear to her in speaking to the metropolitan city.
“North Carolina has a history of the point I’m about to make,” said Harris. “Generations of Americans before us led the fight for freedom. And now the baton is in our hands. It is in our hands. So we who believe in the sacred freedom to vote will finally pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act. … So much, so much is at stake in this election.”