When Barack Obama squeaked by John McCain in North Carolina in 2008, it was the first time a Democratic presidential candidate had won there in decades. But the Tarheel State has remained just out of reach for Democrats ever since. Obama lost it by slightly over two points in 2012; Hillary Clinton by three-plus in 2016; and Joe Biden by a mere 1.44 points in 2020, when North Carolina represented Trump’s narrowest margin of victory in the country. (The state’s Democratic senate hopefuls have met a similar fate over the years.)

But there’s reason for Kamala Harris’s campaign to be hopeful about breaking her party’s losing streak. North Carolina’s Democratic infrastructure looks much sturdier than it has in previous years. Polls show almost a pure toss-up race. And perhaps most promisingly, Mark Robinson is on the ballot. The Republican gubernatorial candidate and self-proclaimed “black Nazi” — whose extremism is a bit much even for the modern-day GOP, and whose campaign appears to be in freefall — just may drag Donald Trump down with him. To gauge Harris’s chances in North Carolina, I turned to Michael Bitzer, a professor of politics and history at Catawba College who has written (and tweeted) widely about the state’s recently tumultuous politics.

Even before these latest revelations about Mark Robinson, there was an idea that Democrats might benefit from “reverse coattails” — that because Robinson is so extreme, more voters might turn out to oppose him, which would give Dems an advantage in the presidential race to boot. Do you think there’s anything to this theory?
What has been pretty stunning to me is that the Harris–Trump polling numbers are a coin toss. It is within the margin of error, so there is no clear front-runner. But the numbers show such a healthy margin between Josh Stein and Robinson — you’re talking about a quarter of Republicans not voting for Robinson. Could there be enough potential toxicity to affect Trump, to affect down-ballot Republicans as well? I don’t think anybody truly knows until we get the ballots counted.

The state does have a history of electing Democratic governors while not voting for Democratic presidential candidates.
Very much so. Go back 20 years to 2004: George W. Bush wins the state by 12 points, and Democratic incumbent governor Mike Easley wins by 12 percentage points, so you’ve got a 24-point swing. Go back to 2020: It’s a six-point swing in the state between Donald Trump and Roy Cooper. So this fits the model and the history of North Carolina. The question is, how big a swing does it take to push that dynamic to flow through the rest of the ballot?

And unlike some other southern states, North Carolina has elected a modern breed of Democrat, not the sort of ’60s- and ’70s-style........

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