Trump and Harris seek votes in North Carolina in the final stretch of the election

Kamala Harris and Donald Trump will offer some of their final election speeches to voters on Wednesday in North Carolina, a swing state with a Democratic governor who has been supporting Republican presidential hopefuls for more than a decade.

North Carolina has 16 votes in the Electoral College, the group of electors that elect the president and vice president of the country, making it one of the most contested states that could decide who wins the elections on November 5.

The race between Harris and Trump is very close nationally and damage caused by last month’s hurricane have made North Carolina’s results especially difficult to predict.

On Wednesday, Harris will be in Raleigh, the capital, a fast-growing town of about 480,000 people, while Trump will hold a rally in Rocky Mount, a city of 50,000 people.

Democrat Harris and Republican Trump are competing in a state that the former president won by less than 1.5 percentage points in 2020.

The visits of both candidates take place after from Harris’ biggest rally to datewhich took place Tuesday night in Washington, where he warned voters of the dangers of Trump’s return to power. He spoke at the location near the White House where on January 6, 2021 Trump asked his supporters to go to the Capitoil from the US and that they “fight.”

At stake in the elections is who will lead the richest and most powerful country in the world. Harris and Trump diverge on support for Ukraine and NATO, abortion rights, taxes, basic democratic principles and tariffs that could trigger trade wars.

When talking about trade on Tuesday, Trump explicitly mentioned the European Union. “They are terrible,” he said. “They sell millions and millions of cars in the United States. No, no, no; they are going to have to pay a high price.”

Long wait for results?

Residents in North Carolina, especially in the rural West hard hit by Hurricane Milton, are still trying to rebuild their lives after the devastating damage caused last month.

Many of the counties in the area lean Republican.

While some state officials — including some Republicans — praised federal cleanup efforts, Biden and Harris, his vice president, have been the target of criticism and false rumors, including those spread by Trump, about how much help arrived and how quickly.

Rep. Andy Harris of Maryland, who chairs the hardline Republican House Freedom Caucus, said in an exchange last week that, given the destruction caused, the state legislature should preemptively declare that Trump won the College’s 16 votes. Electoral of the state, to avoid “depriving voters of their rights.”

The state’s governor, Democrat Roy Cooper, criticized Andy Harris on on Tuesday.

“North Carolina’s electoral votes will be reflected by ballot box votes,” he said. “We want to make sure that everyone… has the opportunity to have their voice heard.”

Trump leads Kamala Harris by just one percentage point in North Carolina, according to a FiveThirtyEight polling average. The last time the state threw its support behind a Democratic presidential candidate was Barack Obama in 2008.

If the election is as close as polls indicate, North Carolina’s outcome may remain unclear for a week or more.

Mail-in votes arriving on Nov. 5, as well as overseas and military voter ballots, are counted during the 10-day counting period that follows Election Day.

In 2020, the media did not award North Carolina to Trump until November 13, 10 days after the election.

More than a third of North Carolina’s registered voters have already voted in the 2024 election, according to the state’s board of elections.

[Con información de Reuters]

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