Cooper, Ross won’t be at Hillary Clinton event in Raleigh

Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton will be in Raleigh Wednesday, but the two other Democrats at the top of North Carolina’s ballot won’t be joining her.

Neither Attorney General Roy Cooper, who’s running for governor, nor U.S. Senate candidate Deborah Ross will be at the event at the State Fairgrounds, their campaigns said Tuesday.

Cooper “won’t be there tomorrow but he looks forward to campaigning with her in the future and talking about how harmful the Trump/McCrory agenda is for North Carolina,” campaign spokesman Ford Porter said.

Ross has a community event scheduled at the same time and didn’t want to cancel it, spokesman Cole Leiter said. “She chose to keep her prior commitment in High Point and won’t be able to make Hillary’s rally in Raleigh, but she will be sending her staff and supporters,” he said.

Clinton’s event, scheduled for 2:30 p.m. at the Fairgrounds Expo Center, is her first campaign stop in North Carolina since becoming her party’s presumptive nominee. Her campaign says she will “discuss her vision for an America that is stronger together and her commitment to build an economy that works for everyone.”

Republicans have sought to connect Clinton to Cooper and Ross, while Democrats are eager to tie Gov. Pat McCrory and U.S. Sen. Richard Burr to the GOP’s presidential candidate, Donald Trump. Neither Burr nor McCrory attended Trump’s Greensboro rally last week, although the governor did attend a fundraiser with the billionaire while he was in the state.

This story was originally published June 21, 2016 at 4:22 PM with the headline "Cooper, Ross won’t be at Hillary Clinton event in Raleigh."