Of all the states voting Tuesday, North Carolina stands out as the one most likely to remain a hotbed for political activity long after polls close next week. For Trump, already looking ahead to a potential rematch with President Joe Biden, it is likely to be the first of many visits here as he seeks a third consecutive win in this key battleground.
He will have stiff competition once again. North Carolina, which Trump narrowly won in 2020, is emerging as a critical piece of Biden’s reelection strategy. The president’s advisers view its 16 electoral votes as not only attainable, considering the state’s changing demographics, but also as something of an insurance policy, given challenges in Michigan and other battleground states.
The yawning gap between the two remaining contenders for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination was on full display Saturday at a pair of pre-Super Tuesday campaign events in North Carolina.
Former President Donald Trump drew more than 5,000 supporters and prominent Republican candidates to the Special Events Center of the Greensboro Coliseum while former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, once Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations, drew about 1,500 people at downtown Raleigh’s Union Station. The two speeches, and the size and type of the crowds they drew, provided a stark view of a Republican party fractured but leaning away from Haley’s conservative pragmatism and toward the vitriol and melodrama of the Trump campaign.