Kamala Harris seeks to build on debate momentum with North Carolina rallies
The Democratic presidential nominee will hold two rallies in the state on Thursday, followed by a pair of events in Pennsylvania on Friday.
GREENSBORO, N.C. — Riding a fresh wave of momentum after her debate performance, Vice President Kamala Harris is ramping up her campaign Thursday by holding two rallies in North Carolina as she tries to wrestle back the key battleground state and close off one of former President Donald Trump’s main paths to victory.
Both campaigns see the state as playing a key role in November. Trump narrowly won it in 2020, and no Democrat has prevailed in the presidential race here since Barack Obama in 2008. There’s also a hard-fought battle for governor, in which Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein faces Republican Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson.
“Voters across North Carolina are building a powerful coalition to elect Vice President Harris and to defeat Donald Trump and his allies like Mark Robinson, who are pushing an extreme Project 2025 agenda to rip away our freedoms, raise costs on our families and undo the Medicaid expansion we fought so hard to deliver,” said Dory MacMillan, the Harris campaign’s North Carolina communications director. “This is going to be a close race — but we have built a campaign ready to win close races and to reach voters across the political spectrum in our cities and in rural areas.”
According to a Quinnipiac University poll out this week, Harris leads Trump 49% to 46% in North Carolina, within the survey’s margin of error. It’s still an extremely tight race, but it’s an improvement for Democrats from where President Joe Biden stood in the spring. A Quinnipiac University poll in April found Trump leading Biden 48% to 46%, again within the margin of error.
A Harris campaign official said her team is entering a new, more aggressive phase with staffers spending all day Wednesday reviewing video from this week’s debate to select moments to drop into new TV and digital ads.
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