At an event with Gwen Walz and Doug Emhoff, it’s clear why Democrats think they can finally win North Carolina

Changing demographics, a 12-week abortion ban and an extremist candidate for governor has Democrats thinking they finally have a shot.

(Eric Garcia/The Independent)

North Carolina loves nail-biters, whether it’s the showdowns between the University of North Carolina Tar Heels and Duke Blue Devils in basketball or in presidential races.

“Elections in North Carolina are always close, always close,” Josh Stein, the state’s attorney general and the Democratic nominee for governor told a crowd in Raleigh ahead of introducing Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff and Gwen Walz, the wife of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, on Monday. But, he added, that means the state has a chance to determine who goes to the White House.

Both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris’s campaigns are making a serious play for North Carolina. The non-partisan Cook Political Report rates the Tar Heel state as a toss-up.

Prior to President Joe Biden stepping aside, Harris regularly traveled the state. When she moved to the top of the ticket, she briefly considered making the state’s term-limited Governor Roy Cooper her running mate — before he bowed out. And two days after this week’s debate, Harris will head to Charlotte.

For his part, one of Trump’s first stops after he was indicted in June of last year was at the North Carolina GOP’s convention. He also made the state party chairman the head of the Republican National Convention, alongside his daughter Lara Trump, who is from Wilmington. And last Friday, Trump addressed the Fraternal Order of Police, the nation’s largest police union, after it endorsed him in Charlotte.

The Walz-Harris battle bus (Eric Garcia/The Independent)

North Carolina has proven elusive for Democrats ever since Barack Obama won the state in 2008. Mittt Romney won it by a little more than 2 points. Trump won it by 3.6 points. Biden cut into Trump’s margin of victory in 2020, but nonetheless lost it.

But Democrats think this might be the moment for a Cinderella story akin to North Carolina State University’s run in the Final Four this year. And they believe it’s possible for a number of solid reasons.

The first is structural. Between July 2021 and July 2022, almost 100,000 people migrated into the state, according to the US Census Bureau. North Carolina saw an influx of people from not just blue states like California, New York and Virginia, but also red states like Florida and Texas. But Democrats think it may have tipped things in their favor.

I met Dean Deal — a retired US Air Force veteran who wore a Harris-Walz shirt with a cat on it, an allusion to Trump running mate JD Vance saying the US is being run by “a bunch of childless cat ladies” — at the Gwen Walz and Doug Emhoff event on Monday afternoon. He said he’d moved to North Carolina recently.

“It was just a good place. I had some family here [and I brought] my mother over here,” he told The Independent.

Gale Touger told The Independent that Harris moving to the top of the ticket seemed to re-energize young voters in her area.

“I know that many people in my children's generation were gonna sit this one out, in spite of their parents saying ‘You can't do that.’ But in having Kamala Harris as an option, they will vote, which is very important,” she said.

Laura Michlik told The Independent the same: “I think this year there's a lot more hope after Biden dropped out. I think a lot of people finally came back to wanting to vote and wanting to be a part of the process.”

On top of that, protecting abortion rights became a major rallying cry. Last year, North Carolina’s legislature passed a 12-week abortion ban and overrode Cooper’s veto.

“Between the Supreme Court ruling and the 12 weeks, I think that we just don't want to see our rights disappear,” Michlik told The Independent.

Democrats have Mark Robinson, the Trump-endorsed Republican nominee for governor, to task for his hardline outward stance on abortion. Robinson said in the past that he believes there is no justification for an abortion and that an abortion should never be performed, even after a day of pregnancy. Yet he recently released a campaign ad admitting that he and his wife chose abortion when they were younger.

All of this looks good for Democrats — but at the same time, they face a lot of challenges. At a park just outside Market Hall, some voters expressed skepticism about Harris’s ticket.

“Is she really determined to handle these main issues that's going on right now?” Abdul Jabar, who lives in Raleigh, told The Independent, citing Israel’s war in Gaza, the cost of living and homelessness as three issues he cares deeply about. Though he’s not fully convinced by Harris, he believes Trump is a “clown,” he added.

“He is a clown,” added Terry Champion, who was sitting with Jabar.

“What happened on January 6, yeah, no, like, come on, that was really childish,” Jabar added, continuing that he thought the violence among Trump supporters on that day was “really uncalled for”.

Democrats have been struggling to convince Black men like Jabar to continue voting for them, though he said he thinks he will ultimately vote for Harris.

“I didn't vote this year, so I will go for her,” he said. “But to me, I just gotta see the action.”

The election right now is a jump ball and it’s in the fourth quarter. Expect buzzer beaters, nail biters and upsets as we continue.