Vice President Kamala Harris will be visiting Charlotte Thursday, marking her fourth visit to the Tar Heel State this year. While Harris will give remarks about the Biden administration’s handled the “climate crisis” and “environmental justice,” according to a media advisory from the White House. She will also be coronating a new campaign office in the Queen City as the reelection campaign makes new staffing hires in a top battleground state.
The visit comes on the heels of a joint appearance by Harris and President Joe Biden in Raleigh last week, after which they attended a fundraiser in the capital city of Raleigh with Democrat Gov. Roy Cooper. Appearing on PBS-NC state politics show, State Lines, Democrat strategist Morgan Jackson spoke to the Biden campaign’s heightened focus on North Carolina.
“Having the president and vice president together was a historic event,” said Jackson. “You don’t see the sitting president and sitting vice president campaigning together; that’s just not something that happens. It shows their focus on North Carolina.”
Jackson is the co-founder of Nexus Strategies, a prominent Democratic consulting group with clients like Gov. Roy Cooper and Attorney General Josh Stein. The group is also heading up ‘Biden for NC,’ attempting to flip North Carolina for Democrats after three straight wins for Republican presidential nominees in 2012, 2016, and 2020.
“Biden lost North Carolina by less than 75,000 votes in 2020, the smallest margin of any state Trump won,” said Andy Jackson, director of the Civitas Center for Public Integrity at the John Locke Foundation. “That makes North Carolina the only state Trump won in 2020 where Biden has a realistic path to victory in 2024. In other words, the Tar Heel State is the only place the Biden campaign can play offense while defending the ‘blue wall’ of Trump 2016/Biden 2020 states such as Wisconsin, Georgia, and Pennsylvania.”
Add to that, Biden sees Cooper as one of his strongest ambassadors for the administration’s policies. Cooper is on the Biden-Harris 2024 National Advisory Board with former US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, and other national party heavyweights.
While the Raleigh visit began with delivered remarks on lowering prescription drug prices and touting Medicaid expansion in North Carolina, the main event was Cooper hosting the White House duo for a fundraiser. According to Jackson, at $2.3 million, it was “the largest single fundraiser in North Carolina history.”
This week, in addition to announcing new campaign staff and offices, Harris is slated to talk about climate change. It’s not likely the campaign is winning over new voters in Charlotte, considering the already solid Democratic voting tendencies of Mecklenburg County. However, shoring up their base in North Carolina’s blue zones could be critical if the Biden campaign is to win in this increasingly influential battleground state.
A Carolina Journal poll conducted in March found that 49% of voters in Charlotte’s core 12th Congressional District approve of his performance. However, in Charlotte’s suburbs, falling in 6th and 8th Congressional Districts, those number drop to 41% and 33%, respectively. Only Charlotte’s neighboring 14th Congressional District shows Biden and Harris above water with 51% approval. Everywhere else across the state’s rural, suburban, and urban categories they are underwater, which may suggest these visits to North Carolina metros are aimed at reclaiming ground lost with Democrat-leaning voters since the 2020 election.