It's hard to conceive of any electoral map for Donald Trump that doesn't include North Carolina and yet he's all but ignored the state. He's barely got much of a ground game, if any, and Hillary Clinton's beating him in the reliably red by nearly four points in Huffington Post's average of polls. Bottom line: short of an unanticipated miracle, things don't look good for Trump, reports Katie Glueck.
Interviews with more than a dozen North Carolina operatives and lawmakers reveal that Trump has failed to consolidate the Republican base in North Carolina. Worse, according to these sources, he is particularly driving away female and independent voters who are crucial in Republican-leaning suburbs, such as Apex, outside of Raleigh.
Meanwhile, they say, Hillary Clinton’s extensive field organization and saturation of the airwaves make it even harder for Trump’s bare-bones, late-starting operation to catch up despite a recent reorganization of his team here.
At this point, said veteran Republican strategist Carter Wrenn, Trump’s best hope for winning North Carolina rests on the possibility of some major game-changing external event, rather than on his campaign’s ability to produce a win. That’s a risky dynamic for Trump, whose road to the White House would almost certainly have to run through North Carolina, given his underwater polling in other key battleground states.
The Clinton campaign has worked aggressively in North Carolina to expand the battleground map and now we are seeing the fruits of its labor. Maybe Trump can drag down Sen. Richard Burr and Gov. Pat McCrory while he’s at it.