Lara Trump: Campaign’s ground game strong in NC

Lara Trump described her father-in-law Donald Trump’s ground game as “extremely strong” at the opening celebration of a campaign office in a strip shopping center in Cary on Thursday.

The office in Cary is one of three “RNC victory offices” in North Carolina – all opened this week. They are run by the Republican National Committee instead of the Trump campaign and are meant to promote Republican candidates up and down the ballot.

“We don’t feel like we need to oversaturate the market in a way,” Trump told The News and Observer. “We feel great. We feel strong.”

Kara Carter, the state communications director at the Republican National Committee, said that the number of offices in the state doesn’t accurately reflect the support the campaign has received. She noted that efforts have been focused on voter registration and outreach – including door-to-door campaigning and phone-banking.

“The work that’s going to make the difference in November happens outside of these four walls,” Carter said.

Polls show Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump splitting the vote in the state. The most recent survey from Quinnipiac University found Clinton leading Trump by four points in North Carolina, but another poll from Suffolk University shows Trump with a three-point lead. An average of recent polls by RealClear Politics shows Clinton’s lead in the state at less than a single percentage point.

Lara Trump said a large part of her father-in-law’s appeal, especially to young voters, is his economic policies and experience.

She also told The N&O that she realizes debate surrounding the economic impact of House Bill 2 is a “big issue in the state” – and that she didn’t realize how big an issue it was until she arrived in the state and watched local news. “It’s everywhere,” she said.

Both the ACC and NCAA pulled their championships out of North Carolina this week because of their opposition to the bill, which requires people in schools and other government facilities to use the bathroom of the gender that appears on their birth certificates. It also prevents local governments from passing anti-discrimination ordinances that protect people based on their sexual orientation or gender identity.

Trump said the campaign wants to concentrate on national problems, and that she thinks it does “have bigger things to focus on” than the issues raised by HB2.

“Mr. Trump has always said that should be a state issue, and let the states figure it out,” Trump said. “I think they’ll come to a good decision.”

Donald Trump at one point suggested North Carolina should “leave it the way it is” and let people “use the bathroom that they feel is appropriate” but later described it as a state issue. He told The N&O in July: “generally speaking I’m with the state on things like this.”

Lara Trump made an appeal to young voters at a campaign stop at her alma mater Thursday, where she described support for the Republican nominee as strong.

Millennials are a demographic the campaign is struggling to reach. A CBS survey conducted Aug. 30 to Sept. 2 showed that 57 percent of 18 to 29 year-olds in the state say they would vote for Clinton if the election were being held today. Nineteen percent said they would vote for Trump.

“I think for younger voters, the message really is about jobs,” Lara Trump said. “You think that if you play by the rules and go to school, then you get a job. It’s not always like that, and it should be.”

This story was originally published September 15, 2016 at 3:35 PM with the headline "Lara Trump: Campaign’s ground game strong in NC."