It’s a three-peat for Donald Trump in North Carolina, where he’s projected to take home the Tar Heel State’s 16 electoral votes, beating Vice President Kamala Harris in the swing state.
Trump edges Harris 2,571,258 votes (50.8%) to 2,436,454 (48.1%), with 89% of votes counted, the Associated Press reports.
Both candidates traveled to the Tar Heel State Saturday to close the sale on the state’s last day of early voting. Trump rallied in Gastonia and Greensboro while Harris stopped in Charlotte just before her “Saturday Night Live” debut.
The candidates visited North Carolina often this campaign season, where issues like inflation, the cost of living, and the economy motivated voters.
A survey released Monday indicated those issues were top of mind for North Carolina’s registered voters as they headed to the polls, with abortion and border security trailing closely behind.
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Early voting in the state broke records this cycle, with 57% of North Carolina’s registered voters having already cast their ballots as of Sunday morning. At the close of the early in-person voting period, 4.2 million ballots had been cast, surpassing the approximately 3.6 million early in-person votes cast in the 2020 cycle.
Notably, early turnout was higher on average among the 25 western counties most impacted by Hurricane Helene — which pre-election polling indicated would tilt toward Trump.
Harris and her running mate Tim Walz spent several days this election season stumping in North Carolina with outgoing Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper and his successor Josh Stein, the state’s current Attorney General and now Governor-elect.
Trump’s campaign has distanced itself from Republican gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson after he allegedly posted racist and sexist remarks under a pseudonym on a porn site. Robinson lost the governor’s race to Stein early in the evening Tuesday, with just 25% of the votes counted.
