Donald Trump wins North Carolina, AP projects

North Carolina and its 16 electoral votes will go to former President Donald Trump, based on a race call by The Associated Press. 

It's the first of seven swing states that the AP has called for Trump. Vice President Kamala Harris' campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon told staff in a memo that the "blue wall" of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin was now the Democrat’s "clearest path" to victory.

North Carolina voters reported the economy and immigration among their top issues, two areas where Trump has polled better. 

Why is North Carolina a swing state?

Former President Donald Trump has won North Carolina (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

Since 1968, Democratic presidential candidates have carried North Carolina only twice: in 1976 and 2008. Nonetheless, the state has been competitive in recent years. Trump carried North Carolina twice but with less than 50% of the vote each time. He edged Biden in 2020 by about one percentage point, his smallest winning margin in any state.

North Carolina added roughly 400,000 voters to its rolls since 2020, when Trump beat President Joe Biden by 70,000-plus votes. It was hard to tell before the election which party the new voter registrations boosted, as more and more of them are registering as unaffiliated with either party, University of North Carolina political science professor Jason Roberts said. 

Political observers were also watching to see whether the North Carolina’s gubernatorial race hurt Trump at the top of the ticket. Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, the state’s controversial Republican candidate for governor, was plagued with scandal and down by double digits in the polls. He lost the race to Democrat Josh Stein, but Trump was still able to win the Tarheel State.