A gathering at the Cumberland County Democratic Party headquarters on Thursday was small, maybe 25 people at most, but it was a harbinger of something big: In 2024, North Carolina will again be a factor in the outcome of the presidential election.
Democrats on Thursday were celebrating the opening of a campaign office in Fayetteville for President Joe Biden. As of Friday, former President Donald Trump’s campaign has not yet opened a Fayetteville office for this election cycle, said Cumberland County Republican Party Chairwoman Nina Morton.
“We are in play for this presidential election,” state Sen. Val Applewhite (D-Dist. 19), a Fayetteville Democrat, told CityView on Friday. Applewhite appeared and spoke at the Thursday opening ceremony along with state Sen. Rachel Hunt (D-Dist. 42), who is running for lieutenant governor.
“North Carolina is going to be a critical swing state for both sides,” said Paul Shumaker, a prominent Republican political consultant in North Carolina who is known for his detailed data analysis. “It is still a state that leans slightly to the right, but is a toss-up state for both sides.”
Biden’s Fayetteville field office is in a small commercial building that the county Democratic Party has at 5330 Raeford Road. It is one of 10 campaign field offices the Biden team is opening in North Carolina in addition to a headquarters office in Raleigh, Axios reported.
North Carolina is a must-win for Trump
North Carolina has 16 votes in the Electoral College, where a candidate needs 270 votes to become president. North Carolina is key to the outcome in the Electoral College, Shumaker said.
“What makes it critical for the Biden people is that there’s no path to victory for a Republican to win the White House without winning North Carolina,” he said. “There is a path to victory for a Democrat to the White House without winning North Carolina.”
In other words: Biden’s ability to win Democrat-favoring states in other parts of the country indicates Biden doesn’t have to win in North Carolina to reach 270 Electoral College votes. But if Trump loses in North Carolina, Trump’s prospects fade.
Despite recent GOP wins, North Carolina is toss-up
The last time a Democratic presidential candidate won North Carolina was in 2008, when Barack Obama led John McCain by just 14,177 votes. The Republican candidates took North Carolina in 2012, 2016 and 2020.
But Trump’s 2020 win in North Carolina was close. His margin of victory was 1.34%, or 74,483 out of more than 5.5 million ballots.
Since then, the Democrats have been gaining voters in the rapidly growing Raleigh-Durham and Charlotte metro areas, Shumaker said.
Shumaker said he crunched voter registration data and found that from 2018 to 2022, “about 45% of all new voter registration growth has happened in two counties — Wake and Mecklenburg — and those counties are trending more blue.”
Despite the Democrats’ big-city gains, “right now the state favors Trump because Democrats have got a major turn-out problem,” Shumaker said. Democrats have had issues with turnout in the 2016, 2020 and 2022 elections, he said, “and they have yet to fix it.”
Democratic candidates also are less favored by unaffiliated voters, Shumaker said. Unaffiliated voters have been the largest segment of North Carolina voters since 2022. As of April 20, North Carolina had 2.74 million independent voters. In comparison, the Democrats had 2.41 million, and the Republicans had 2.24 million.
Can Fayetteville help Democrats win?
Applewhite and Cumberland County Democratic Party Chairman Derrick Montgomery said the opening of the Biden campaign office shows the Fayetteville region is important in the North Carolina battle.
“They see Cumberland county as a vital part, and decision-maker, in winning North Carolina,” Montgomery said.
Biden campaign spokeswoman Dory MacMillan made a similar point.
“North Carolina is a key battleground in 2024, and the Biden-Harris campaign and North Carolina Democratic Party are investing and organizing early to build a winning coalition that meets voters where they are, including in Cumberland County, which will be key to earning a victory for President Biden and Democrats up and down the ballot,” she said.
Biden needs independent voters
While Cumberland County is considered a blue county, where 40.72% of the voters are registered as Democrats, “we need to overperform in Cumberland County” for the Democrats to win statewide, Montgomery said.
Of more than 213,000 registered voters in Cumberland County, 86,768 are Democrats, 48,974 are Republicans and 75,148 are independent.
“Make no mistake about it: Cumberland County has 70-plus thousand registered unaffiliates,” he said. “Our unaffiliates are huge decision-makers for Cumberland and the state of North Carolina. … We’re not overlooking that.”
The Democrats will seek not only to spur their own voters, but try to persuade the independent voters to pick Democratic candidates, he said.
Senior reporter Paul Woolverton can be reached at 910-261-4710 and pwoolverton@cityviewnc.com.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to add comment from the Biden campaign. It also has been corrected to state the correct last name for Cumberland County Democratic Party Chairman Derrick Montgomery.
This story was made possible by contributions to CityView News Fund, a 501c3 charitable organization committed to an informed democracy.
