Trump, Pence and Harris visit five cities on their latest swings through NC
President Donald Trump made his seventh campaign stop in North Carolina since September on Sunday on the same day Sen. Kamala Harris held her fourth and fifth events in the state.
Vice President Mike Pence, too, was in the state on Sunday, his eighth appearance in North Carolina since September. The Trump campaign has blitzed North Carolina, a swing state that is widely seen as playing a crucial role in 2020’s Electoral College calculus.
The campaigning will continue into Monday, with Trump set to give remarks in Fayetteville as part of an appearance that was canceled Friday by the remnants of Hurricane Zeta. Melania Trump, the first lady, is scheduled to give a speech Monday afternoon in Huntersville.
Trump took the stage at Hickory Regional Airport wearing a long coat, gloves and a red Make America Great Again hat low over his eyes. The Republican president began speaking shortly after 6:30 p.m..
“Two days from now we are going to win this great state just like we did last time. You were the one, right? You were the one that put us over that hump,” Trump said, adding that the people there were lucky that he doesn’t need teleprompters because the windy conditions were making them hard to read.
As he started speaking, Trump rattled off a series of campaign promises: If reelected, he intends to cut taxes, cut regulations, support police, protect the Second Amendment and protect religious liberties.
Trump also criticized N.C. Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, for his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. Cooper’s Republican opponent, Lt. Gov. Dan Forest, was in attendance at Trump’s Sunday evening rally.
“Tell your governor to open up North Carolina, it’s time. It’s time, it’s time. It’s ridiculous, it’s ridiculous. He’ll probably announce it on Nov. 4. ‘We’re going to open up now.’ You know, they thought our numbers wouldn’t be so good,” Trump said, seemingly referring to economic statistics that showed that the gross domestic product grew 33.1% in the third quarter, regaining much of the economic ground lost to the coronavirus pandemic.
North Carolina saw its three highest days of new COVID-19 cases on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Forest has pledged that if victorious, he would immediately set about lifting COVID-19 restrictions.
Sunday, Trump blamed China for the COVID-19 pandemic and said a vaccine is close. He also said that schools should be reopened because young people have healthy immune systems, as shown by his 14-year-old son Barron’s ability to defeat the virus.
Trump did hit one note that his opponents almost certainly agree with: Voting this year, he said, is more important than ever.
“This is the most important election, possibly in the history of our country. You must let everyone know, go get ’em, go grab your family, grab your boss, grab your coworkers, grab ’em all, gotta get out and vote, so important,” Trump said.
Harris in Eastern NC
Harris, the Democratic nominee for vice president, made a series of appearances in Eastern North Carolina on Sunday.
The California senator landed in Kinston, where she took several questions from the press, including one about Graham law enforcement pepper spraying people on Saturday during a protest and march to the polls.
According to a pool reporter, Harris initially said she didn’t know much about what had happened, but reporters provided details.
Then, Harris said, “I think it’s very important that everyone be able to vote without any hindrance, without any intimidation, without any obstacles.”
Harris was also asked about an Axios report that Trump intends to declare victory Tuesday night if it looks like he is “ahead,” even if mail-in ballots remain uncounted in key swing states like Pennsylvania.
“We plan to decisively win this election so I don’t, I don’t think we’re going to need to get to that point,” Harris said.
Harris then headed to Goldsboro to attend a get-out-the-vote rally in the city’s large Herman Park, where about 50 supporters wore masks and were socially distanced. At least 100 more watched from the perimeter of the park.
“Everything is at stake,” Harris said of the election.
The country, she said, is in four crises at the moment: a pandemic, an economic depression, racial strife and a growing environmental crisis. On each, she said, former Vice President Joe Biden stands in stark contrast to President Trump.
“When we think about the outcome of this presidential race, when we think about what you’re going to do when it comes to the Senate race, we know we have a real opportunity to confront these crises,” she said. “But they are real so we must call them out. We are dealing with the crisis of a public health epidemic that is, in my opinion, a mass casualty event of a proportion we have not seen since World War II.”
She told the crowd, which was majority Black, that they should vote because people are trying to suppress their voice.
“Here in North Carolina, you know more than most that there have been active people trying to suppress the vote, trying to make it difficult for people to vote, trying to make it confusing for people to vote,” she said, referencing a federal court ruling that said a state voting law targeted Black voters with “surgical precision.”
“One has to ask that question, ‘Why are so many powerful people trying to make it so difficult and confusing for us to vote?’” she said. “I believe the answer is because they know our power. They know when we vote, things change.”
The Rev. William Barber II, a prominent anti-poverty activist from Goldsboro, pointed to the close 2016 election and the roughly 100 million people who didn’t vote that year.
“We have an occupant in the White House. Because of 80,000 votes. 80,000 in three states,” he said.
“We must say that this vote is a vote of reengagement,” Barber said. “Never again will we allow another election to be decided like it was in 2016.”
U.S. Rep. G.K. Butterfield told attendees that turnout was not as high as it needed to be in Wayne County for Biden to win the state. He urged everyone to go back to their communities and ask people to go vote.
Pence in Boone
Earlier Sunday in Boone, Pence attended the 9 a.m. service at Alliance Bible Fellowship, a nondenominational Christian congregation.
Scott Andrews, Alliance Bible Fellowship’s lead pastor, greeted Pence on Sunday morning and said the appearance was not a campaign event. He also recounted Pence’s political history, including his time as governor of Indiana.
“You may be vaguely aware of Indiana,” Andrews told the congregation. “That’s the state that would like to play basketball. But it’s OK, Mr. Pence, not everybody can be a Tar Heel.”
The vice president frequently addresses his faith during campaign speeches, including recently in North Carolina, making it clear that his own faith guides how he governs.
Pence did not make any remarks during Sunday’s service, leaving to applause shortly after communion. He was joined at the service by Franklin Graham, the president of Samaritan’s Purse and a longtime Trump supporter. Graham also offered a prayer for Trump at the Sunday evening rally.
As he introduced a prayer for Pence, Andrews looked at the vice president and said, “I am quite confident that the last few months have been especially busy for you and your family. You must be quite exhausted, what with keeping up with all of the tweets.”
During the prayer, Andrews called 2020 a “big election.” He also mentioned a wide range of government officials during the prayer, smiling slightly at a mention of the Supreme Court and newly confirmed Justice Amy Coney Barrett. The former Notre Dame law school professor has been questioned for how her own religious views might shape her interpretation of the law.
Andrews made another reference to 2020 during the sermon, which was in part about the church’s strict interpretation of written scripture. Alliance tells followers to lead lives guided by the written word in order to be saved during a return of Jesus Christ that the church believes is “imminent.”
“It seems like 2020 would be a good year for Jesus to come back. Then we wouldn’t have to be concerned about Tuesday’s election, he would just be king of kings and lord of lords,” Andrews said.
This story was originally published November 1, 2020 at 2:53 PM.