Rivals can't stay away

Obama and McCain will be in N.C. this weekend, hoping to sway what's now a swing state

At this point four years ago, President Bush was so far ahead in the polls he pulled most of his campaign staff out of North Carolina.

John McCain and Barack Obama return this weekend to a state with a much different political landscape.

Polls show the race in North Carolina virtually tied less than three weeks before the election. McCain's rally in Concord this morning will be his second visit to the state this week. Sunday, Obama makes his fourth trip to North Carolina since late September with an appearance in Fayetteville.

Both campaigns are blitzing the airwaves with ads. Republican mailers link Obama with '60s radical William Ayers. Thousands of automated GOP phone calls warn of Obama's "extreme leftist agenda."

All the activity underscores the fact that North Carolina, reliably red for 32 years, has become a true battleground.

"Republicans are basically sailing against a headwind with the economic situation, and the incumbent party is getting blamed for it," said Ferrell Blount, a former state GOP chairman. "Hopefully by election time, voters will see around that."

The economy is a big reason the race is tight. An Elon University poll this month found that twice as many North Carolinians blamed Republicans as Democrats for the sour economy.

But another reason has to do with demographics.

Ticket-splitters arrive

The state grew by more than 800,000 between 2000 and 2006 and has since added thousands more from all over the country.

"It's pure mathematics," said Paul Shumaker, a consultant to U.S. Sen. Richard Burr and other Republicans. "Those people who have lived in North Carolina all their lives tend to be self-described conservatives. People moving into North Carolina [are] more moderate ... and they tend to be ticket-splitters."

Population growth and aggressive registration drives have added voters this year. Though both parties increased their numbers, the percentage of registered Republicans fell slightly relative to that of Democrats.

Carmine Scavo, a political scientist at East Carolina University, has seen newcomers drawn to Greenville for medical and other jobs. They're not like the region's more conservative Democrats who consistently voted for Republicans such the late Sen. Jesse Helms.

"Those people coming in [are] not the same type of Jessecrat," he said. "They're coming in with very different concerns about health policy, the deficit, the war in Iraq. ... Their positions tend to line up with that more middle-of-the-road mainstream, a little right-to-center type of Democrats."

Tom Jensen, a spokesman for Raleigh-based Public Policy Polling, a Democratic-leaning firm, traces part of Obama's showing to success attracting small-town voters. In 2004, he says, Bush won 57 percent of those voters. Polls among them now show Obama with a slight edge.

Obama's advantages

According to Jensen, 7 percent of North Carolina voters who supported Bush in 2004 are backing Obama, largely because of economic concerns.

Shumaker says Republicans often don't address "kitchen-table issues."

"We still have folks who approach our campaigns like it's still the 1980s, and it's not," he said. "We ran ideological campaigns ... [Democrats] are talking about solving people's problems and making a difference. ... They've had a message that appeals beyond their party that allows them to steal away Republican votes as well."

Obama also has an aggressive turnout effort.

State officials say Democrats made up 64 percent of the first day's nearly 114,000 voters. And blacks, who comprise 22 percent of the state's population, accounted for about 36 percent.

Obama also has heavily outspent McCain in North Carolina.

In the first week of October, he spent $1.2 million on TV ads, compared to McCain's $148,000, according to the Wisconsin Advertising Project.

Still, Republicans are optimistic.

"I'm not terribly worried," Blount said. "I have a lot of faith in voters, and my guess is that when they make a final selection, they'll see somebody in Barack Obama who's going to raise their taxes. And that's absolutely the wrong thing to do in tough economic times."

(Charlotte Observer staff writer Ann Doss Helms contributed.)