The presidential race has tightened in North Carolina and Georgia, which are considered battleground states by both parties, a stark change from before Vice President Harris joined the race.
As President Biden competed against former President Trump, Georgia, which Biden won four years ago, seemed out of reach, and North Carolina, a state Democrats have won in presidential elections just twice in the past 50 years, seemed even slimmer.
The situation has now completely changed, with both states clearly facing close races.
“Harris has been picking up a lot of good support in places like Georgia and North Carolina since Biden dropped out,” said Scott Tranter of Decision Desk HQ. “She's getting stronger support among African-Americans than Joe Biden.” [there’s] There's enthusiasm for her among Democrats and some independents in these states, enthusiasm that Joe Biden didn't have.”
According to Decision Desk HQ/The Hill polling tally, Trump leads Harris by 0.3 percentage points in Georgia, and Harris leads Trump by 0.1 percentage points in North Carolina, both of which are close races. Quinnipiac University vote Reports released on Monday showed Trump slightly ahead of Harris in Georgia and declared North Carolina a close race with the outcome unpredictable.
Fox News This weekFox News sees Georgia and North Carolina as close races and therefore projects Harris to have an edge in the overall presidential race, both states that Fox News had previously reported as favoring Trump.
All the numbers show that Harris has been closing the gap with Trump since she came to the top of the candidates.
In the days before Biden dropped out of the race, Trump held a 4.9 percentage point lead over Biden in North Carolina. Georgia In a DDHQ/The Hill poll.
North Carolina and Georgia each have 16 electoral votes, and Harris appears to be making a serious push in North Carolina.
Harris visited North Carolina on Thursday, visiting Charlotte and Greensboro, where events in the two cities drew 7,500 and 17,000 people, respectively. By contrast, 2,000 people attended Biden's post-debate rally in Raleigh on June 28, according to a campaign statement at the time.
Trump is doing his best to keep both states, visiting Charlotte last week and Georgia last month, where he is also seeking to repair relations with Republican Governor Brian Kemp.
Trump won both states in 2016 and won North Carolina in 2020. Former President Barack Obama is the only Democrat to win North Carolina this century; he won by about 14,000 votes in 2008.
North Carolina is perhaps the state that has changed the most since Harris entered the race.
Tranter noted that Biden's state was widely seen as Republican or Republican-leaning but has shifted in favor of Harris over the past eight weeks, especially as she has focused on winning over Black voters in the state.
“North Carolina is an absolute jump ball at this point. It's going to be a very close game. It's not clear which way it's going to go,” said Morgan Jackson, a Raleigh-based Democratic strategist.
Jackson, who has tracked Democratic enthusiasm in the state for years, said the party's enthusiasm there is close to the rise in the fall of 2008, when Obama won by just a few percentage points.
Jackson said Harris' campaign “delivered a shot of pure adrenaline to the heart of the Democratic Party in North Carolina.”2,000 new volunteersHe registered in the Tar Heel State during Tuesday's debate.
North Carolina is likely to be a must-win state for Harris, as a loss there would mean she would have to win one or two of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.
Harris could lose Georgia, Arizona, Nevada and North Carolina, three upstate “blue wall” states, if she holds them, along with others won by Biden in 2020. But a win in North Carolina would give her the leeway to fail elsewhere.
“If she wins North Carolina, she will become the next president of the United States because Trump has no other choice,” North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper (Democrat) said over the weekend.
Controversial Republican gubernatorial candidate, Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, could also pose a threat to the former president in the state, Jackson argued, because “his extremism is alienating Republicans.”
Republican strategist Doug Heye questioned whether Harris' plan for North Carolina would replicate or expand on the model Obama used to win the state, where he spent much of the campaign's time ahead of the election and was in Asheville preparing for a debate with former Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).
“It would be nice if she tried to emulate the Obama model, but he barely won. Does it make sense to try to expand on that?” Hay said. “I'll be interested to see where she goes with her upcoming visits.”
Harris said Charlotte and Greensboro, which she visited this week, are already popular destinations for Democratic voters, but that visiting rural towns such as Greenville, Clinton, Hickory and Elizabeth City will help her broaden her reach.
“He's got to do more,” Hay said of Trump's efforts in North Carolina.
“At this point, I still prefer Trump to Harris, but Trump has to work to secure his victory. He can't take North Carolina lightly,” he said.
Campaigning in Georgia in late August, Harris urged voters to ensure a repeat of 2020, when Biden won the Peach State and two Democratic senators were elected.
Biden won Georgia by fewer than 12,000 votes in 2020, becoming the first Democrat to win the state since 1992. The Trump campaign sees the state as an opportunity to gain support.
Trump had a comfortable lead in Georgia for much of the year, so it's “surprising” to see the state backslide to a close race at this point in the election cycle, Tranter said.
Meanwhile, Atlanta-based Democratic strategist Fred Hicks said he's not surprised the Peach State is leaning Democratic, pointing to Biden's 2020 victory and the subsequent ascension of Sens. Raphael Warnock (D-N.Y.) and Jon Ossoff (D-N.Y.) to the Senate.
Hicks acknowledged that Harris may have a higher hurdle in Georgia than she did in North Carolina, reflected in the slight difference in the polling averages, but he also said the enthusiasm among Georgia Democrats is “night and day” now that Harris is leading the party's slate, with more enthusiasm among voters of color and younger voters.
A further boost for Harris in the two southeastern states could come from two key constituencies where she narrowed the gap with Trump: Black and younger voters.
Harris attended Howard University, one of the nation's largest historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs). North Carolina and Georgia are home to the most HBCUs, with North Carolina having 11 and Georgia having 10.
“HBCUs are going to produce talent for Obama,” Hay said, “so if she can fully engage with HBCUs, that would be a huge boost for her that Biden never had.”
