https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/09/19/trump-three-swing-states-election-win-00179648

«Yet none of those other four battlegrounds are relevant if Trump first blocks her in Pennsylvania, Georgia and North Carolina.

It’s the most obvious route for the former president and a reminder of the advantage the Electoral College can confer on a Republican. Should Trump defeat Harris in Pennsylvania, a state President Joe Biden spent much of his childhood in and still only carried by about 80,000 votes, her hopes then hinge on a pair of slightly right-of-center states Democrats have carried once each in this century: North Carolina (won by Barack Obama in 2008) and Georgia, which lined up with Biden in 2024.»

(Emphasis mine.)

«Harris officials have grown bullish on North Carolina, coming to see it nearly as winnable as Georgia, even though North Carolina has fewer Black voters. Longtime North Carolina Democrats, though, are more restrained, having seen so many promising presidential and Senate races go down to narrow defeat since 2008 there.

As one top Tar Heel Democrat put it to me: “I like her momentum, but he’s got the fundamentals.”»

NC has always been a heartbreaker.

And, before you go rabbiting on about the evils of the Electoral College and how we need to get rid of it: just don’t. It ain’t happening, unless you’re talking about the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. (https://www.nationalpopularvote.com/home)