WASHINGTON – Republican voters in North Carolina cast ballots in greater numbers than four years ago, while Democratic turnout sagged. Together, those two factors carried Donald Trump to victory over Vice President Kamala Harris, marking the third time he has carried the swing state.
While Trump has consistently won North Carolina, his victory over Democrat Joe Biden in 2020 was much narrower — just over 1%. This year Trump held a 2.8 percentage point lead when The Associated Press called the race for him at 11:18 p.m. ET once it became clear that there weren't enough outstanding votes left in Democratic-leaning areas for Harris to overtake his lead.
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To understand why Harris did not do as well as Biden in the state, consider Nash and New Hanover counties.
Hillary Clinton lost Nash County, which is east of Raleigh, but Biden flipped it four years later. This year, Trump carried it by 2 percentage points when the race was called. Meanwhile, Harris was winning in New Hanover County, which is home to Wilmington, but she did not do as well as Biden did in 2020.
CANDIDATES: President: Harris (D) v. Trump (R) v. Chase Oliver (Libertarian) v. Jill Stein (Green) v. Randall Terry (Constitution) v. Cornel West (Justice For All).
WINNER: Trump
POLL CLOSING TIME: 7:30 p.m. ET.
ABOUT THE RACE:
North Carolina gave Trump his tightest swing state victory during the 2020 election, a contest in which he edged Biden by roughly a percentage point but still received less than 50% of the vote. Fast-forward four years, and the dynamics have become even more complicated.
Democratic presidential candidates have carried North Carolina only twice since 1968 — the most recent in 2008, when Barack Obama carried the state. But the state is one of the fastest-growing, with migration from elsewhere in the United States serving as the primary driver of population growth. Many are college-educated professionals — a demographic group that has increasingly favored the Democratic Party.
Layer on top of that the aftereffects of Hurricane Helene, which ravaged western parts of the state that are more conservative and still grappling with the devastation, and it offered Democrats perhaps the best chance they had in years to carry the state.
WHY AP CALLED THE RACE: Trump did better in North Carolina than four years ago — when he also won the race. Harris, meanwhile, failed to draw as much support as Biden. When the race was called, she would have needed to garner almost 60% of the remaining vote and there just weren't enough votes left in Democratic strongholds for her to reach that threshold.
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Learn more about how and why the AP declares winners in U.S. elections at Explaining Election 2024, a series from The Associated Press aimed at helping make sense of the American democracy. The AP receives support from several private foundations to enhance its explanatory coverage of elections and democracy. See more about AP’s democracy initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.