Why Kamala Harris is going all-in on North Carolina
CBC
The reason Kamala Harris keeps visiting North Carolina is made evident in an eye-popping pattern her campaign volunteers have noticed while knocking on doors.
What they see are signs of a state growing so rapidly that Asheville's airport is a giant construction site and almost six per cent of the city's residents have moved here from another state in just one year.
Campaign volunteer Susan Thomas only got here two months ago, and she's already canvassing on behalf of the Democratic presidential candidate.
She hears a familiar story: one person, after another, after another, tells her they've just moved from somewhere else.
In the span of just a few minutes last Sunday, Thomas encountered South Carolina Democrats who moved here this year for cooler weather and bluer politics, beside another family of South Carolina Democrats who just moved in next door. She then came across a block party hosted by recently arrived California Democrats, where a Democrat from New Orleans was standing beside the host.
The man from New Orleans said that when he moved here two years ago, a neighbour saw his Louisiana plates and grumbled. This isn't Trump country.
"I [replied], 'Don't worry, we are not Trumpers,'" said Scott Purinton, a retired geologist who came for better weather and fewer hurricanes.
Thomas herself left Texas for the cooler climate, lower living costs and an added political bonus: the chance to vote in a swing state.
"Our vote wasn't mattering [in Texas]," said Thomas, a foster-care worker who started volunteering, in part, to meet people in her new city.
It could matter a lot here this year. North Carolina is a coin-toss state in a coin-toss election, and if that coin lands on the blue side, Harris could roll to victory, with an expanded path to an electoral college win that may not require Pennsylvania or Arizona.
This bustling state is attracting college-educated workers, wealthy retirees and Latino and South Asian immigrants as it diversifies; the non-white population share is 10 percentage points higher than in 2000.
This explains why a state that once voted Republican by a dozen points now consistently has photo-finish elections, with Republicans usually ahead by a whisker.
It's close again.
"A bit of a crap shoot," is how the Democrats' chair in Buncombe County, Kathie Kline, describes this year's race.
