For all the talk about Florida, there’s another swing Southern state to watch—my state of North Carolina. With 15 electoral votes, it’s the fourth-biggest electoral prize in the South.
That’s why some recent polling data from North Carolina should make Trump really nervous. Yesterday, Fox News showed Biden leading Trump 50-46 among likely voters and 49-45 among registered voters—in both cases, outside the 3.5 percent margin of error. Apparently the news half of the fair and balanced network has control of the polling operation—FiveThirtyEight gives Fox News an A- rating, almost on the same level as gold-standard pollsters like Selzer, ABC News/WaPo, and Monmouth.
Speaking of Monmouth—it has Biden and Trump practically tied, with Biden up 48-46 in a high-turnout scenario and a low-turnout scenario. This is a good bit below the 4.9 percent margin of error.
Still, it looks like those numbers were enough to turn North Carolina light blue in Nate’s forecast for the last few days—and give Biden a 70 percent chance of victory as of this writing. How can one state make such a difference? Well, Trump has virtually no politically realistic path to 270 without carrying North Carolina. If Biden flips it, in all likelihood he’s bagged Arizona, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Minnesota, and has almost certainly carried Florida. In other words—if North Carolina goes blue, the worst case is a 333-205 Biden win.
The beauty of it? North Carolina has become a REALLY expensive state in which to advertise. And Trump’s firewall is already springing yuuuuge leaks in Arizona, with Texas potentially competitive for the first time in memory. If Trump has to spend money in Charlotte, the Triangle, and the Triad, it’s money he can’t spend in Miami, Orlando, Tampa Bay, Milwaukee, Phoenix, Houston, DFW and San Antonio. So even if we can’t deliver the state to Biden, at the very least we can bleed Trump white. Suits this North Carolinian just fine.
