Surprise southern state could be 'where Trump’s political career might end': analysis

A surprising swing state that could define the 2024 presidential election is showing signs of dissatisfaction with former President Donald Trump, a new analysis found.

Vice President Kamala Harris might be able to claim a southern state that Democrats have proved unable to win at the presidential level since 2008, the Washington Post's Jennifer Rubin wrote Monday.

"It was no accident that Vice President Kamala Harris’s first two rallies after her smashing debate victory were in North Carolina," Rubin wrote.

"North Carolina is where felon and former president Donald Trump’s political career might end."

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Rubin bases her claim that North Carolina might go blue on polling data, concerns voiced by Republicans and a quirk in that state's election law.

A North Carolina victory could prove definitive for Harris' campaign because, with polls closing at 7:30 p.m. ET and a law allowing mail-in votes to be counted before Election Day, it could be among the first states called, argued Rubin.

"An early-evening victory in a state Democrats have not won for 16 years would reverberate through the country, potentially depressing GOP turnout in Western states and diminishing the appetite for stunts to refuse certification of results in states such as Arizona and Georgia (which would not be determinative if Harris holds the blue wall and wins North Carolina)," Rubin wrote.

"Should Harris win North Carolina’s 16 electoral votes, Trump’s chances of victory diminish greatly."

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper (D) agrees.

“She knows that we are in play,” Cooper recently told “Face the Nation.”And she knows that if she wins North Carolina, she is the next president of the United States, because Trump has no other pathway.”

A WRAL News poll found Harris holds a narrow lead in North Carolina as, according to a TargetSmart analysis, Democratic registration outpaces Republican registration, Rubin reported.

Harris is also unencumbered by a local problem facing Trump: Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, the Republican Part's gubernatorial candidate in the state.

"From Holocaust denial to thundering that 'some folks need killing' to his support for an abortion ban from 'zero weeks,' he symbolizes everything wrong with today’s MAGA Republican Party," Rubin wrote.

"Robinson’s Democratic opponent, Josh Stein, the state attorney general, has opened a 10-point lead. If Democrats tie Robinson (a Trump favorite) to Trump, voters might run from both."

Paul Shumaker, a North Carolina GOP strategist, told the Daily Beast he thinks it's possible voters will flee Trump because of "Robinson's antics" and Trump’s former chief of staff Mick Mulvaney echoed those concerns in an interview with NewsNation, Rubin reported.

“Trump is being weighed down by a very unpopular Republican candidate for governor," Mulvaney reported said. “Trump is going to have some difficulty, I think, in this state, in North Carolina, that he might not have in others.”