Biden campaign highlights blue energy in North Carolina, yet struggles to sway rural voters
President Joe Biden’s campaign is targeting North Carolina as a potential state to win from the Republicans, emphasizing its strategic importance especially if the GOP captures some swing states that Democrats secured in 2020. Despite this effort, there’s a widening gap between the Democratic Party and rural voters in North Carolina, a significant portion of the state’s electorate. Rural regions, with around 3.5 million residents as per the 2020 census, are leaning heavily towards Trump, as indicated by a March poll from the Wall Street Journal showing 62% support among rural voters in seven battleground states, including North Carolina. Furthermore, Wilson County, which is 40% African American and previously voted Democrat, has experienced a decrease in Democratic registration, with more voters now registering as unaffiliated. This trend is part of broader challenges facing Democrats as they try to connect with rural demographics.
President Joe Biden’s campaign is hoping to flip North Carolina away from Republicans, and provide breathing room in case the GOP nabs a swing-state Democrats won in 2020.
However, rural voters, who comprise a significant chunk of the state’s electorate, have continued to distance themselves from Democrats.
Out of the state’s 10.4 million people, about 3.5 million are living in rural areas of the state, according to 2020 census data. A March poll conducted by the Wall Street Journal found that 62% of voters in rural areas comprising seven battle ground states, including North Carolina, planned to vote for Trump.
According to WSJ, Wilson County, a 40% black rural county that voted Democrat in 2020, has seen a decline in Democrat voter registration with a shift to an unaffiliated registration. According to the state’s New Rural Project, an initiative led by Democratic officials, more black Americans in rural North Carolina farming communities might stay home on Election Day or vote for Trump.
Democrats have grown less competitive in “the state’s predominantly white and poor mountainous west,” according to the WSJ, and “there are signs of a growing voter alignment with rural communities,” in the state’s “countrypolitan” counties near Charlotte and Raleigh.
Despite growing pessimism towards Democratic support in rural areas, it hasn’t stopped them from making efforts to garner votes. The Democratic Party has hired 60 people in the state and is opening field offices in cities and small towns, including one Monday in Sylva, North Carolina. “It’s going to be a long haul, but rural is worth fighting for,” Anderson Clayton, the chair of North Carolina’s Democratic Party, said.
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Trump is polling ahead of Biden in the state by 6.6%, according to 538’s running polling average. Trump’s margin in the state is significantly larger than at any point in the 2020 polling average in which Biden largely led from February to November 2020.
Trump won North Carolina 49.93% to 48.59% in 2020, just over a one-point margin. Republicans have won North Carolina in every election except one, former President Barack Obama’s 2008 win, since Ronald Reagan captured the state in 1980.
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