A quick guide to swing state North Carolina

BBC An image of a blue and red-tinted North Carolina postage stamp over a purple background with white stars and blue and red stripes. The stamp features the Wright brothers plane and the Cape Hatteras lighthouse with an inscription that reads 'Greetings from North Carolina'

North Carolina, famous for Michael Jordan, Krispy Kreme and the world’s first flight in a powered aircraft, is one of seven states that will decide the 2024 US presidential election.

Voting in swing states is hard to predict and can swing Republican or Democrat - that’s why you’re hearing so much about them as campaigning draws to a close.

Here’s all you need to know.

Population

10.7m, same as Honduras

Electoral college votes

16 of 538

In a nutshell

It’s the only battleground state that Donald Trump won in 2020 so if Democrats were to flip it, his task becomes a lot harder.

2020 margin

Trump by 74,000 votes.

What's the deal now?

North Carolina is faithfully Republica, but Democrats almost won it in 2020 partly because of the state’s black voters, a group they have heavily targeted again this year.

What do voters say?

Democrats in North Carolina are excited to have Harris as their presidential nominee, the first black and south-east Asian woman in the role. “Everybody is energised and feels like we have a good chance,” says Michael Sutton, 70. William Overton, 85, is frustrated that abortion laws today “are worse than the 1950s”.

Republicans say their top issues are the economy and inflation, followed by immigration. “What we’ve seen the past four years is terrible,” says Zena Rose, a small business owner in Johnston County.

Expert view

For Democrats to win North Carolina, they will need high turnout from the state’s black voters, says Michael Bitzer, chair of the Catawba University Department of Politics, especially in the state’s more populous metros like Raleigh and Charlotte, and in the eastern rural parts of the state. Another key group Democrats need to see in high numbers are voters under the age of 43 - which Mr Bitzer says compose 42% of all registered North Carolina voters.

For Republicans to win, they need their party’s voters to continue registering at higher rates and voting in larger numbers than Democrats. Two things might challenge that, Mr Bitzer says. One factor is whether the 250,000 moderate Republicans who voted for Nikki Haley in the primary support Harris or choose not to vote. The second factor is Hurricane Helene, which destroyed much of the western part of the state in predominantly Republican areas.

What to watch out for on election night

There’s been huge interest in the race for governor, with the Republican candidate Mark Robinson denying a CNN story that he made offensive remarks on a pornography site