GREENSBORO, N.C. — At Senator JD Vance's town hall in Greensboro Thursday night, the head of the Republican National Committee, Michael Whatley, kicked off the event by saying North Carolina is now the most important battleground state.
“Most important state in the country right now, the tip of the spear is the Old North State,” Whatley said.
So why would he say that? When you look at the map from the website 270 To Win, you see of all battleground states the most electoral college votes come from Pennsylvania with 19 votes. North Carolina and Georgia are tied for second with 16.
It's also important to note that the polling shows the race is just as tight in all three of these important states. According to Real Clear Politics, former President Donald Trump is up by about half-a-percent in each one of them. So why again is North Carolina the most important state to Republicans?
Some political pundits say it's because of the 2020 election map. Of all the battleground states, North Carolina is the only one Trump won back then. So he's playing defense in this election.
And his lead in North Carolina has been slipping. When Harris first entered the race, Trump was up by 6 points in our state. Now that lead is down to half-of-a-point.
That means Trump is only leading by about 12,000 votes in North Carolina. Meaning every single vote counts and it's still anybody's ballgame.
Here's the event where the GOP Chair made the comment about North Carolina: