Jakai, the doorknockers in Nash County, North Carolina, when down-home canvassers approached him: Why he and Cook chose not to vote
Jakai was not going to vote this election season. He wasn’t planning on having a conversation with the group of door knockers that came to his neighborhood. But in the span of a couple minutes, he’d agreed to both.
Britton, a 28-year-old non-affiliated voter in Nash County, North Carolina, was pulling out of his driveway in a black SUV, airport bound, when a canvasser from the organization Down Home North Carolina approached his car.
“Can we get five minutes of your time?” door knocker Alex Cook asked. Her plea for five minutes turned into a plea for two minutes, and Britton said yes. From the passenger side window, while Britton’s car was still running, Cook made her case for why he should vote for the Democratic down-ballot candidates the organization had endorsed. She focused on the way the local races would impact healthcare, an issue that resonated with Britton.
Source: Support from rural Democrats will be crucial for Harris to win this swing state
When Joe Biden lost in Nash County, North Carolina, and Trump defeated Kamala, his wife, Sean Jones, in Nashville, and Down Home
The stakes are too high for a potential voter like Britton to be allowed to cast a ballot. Nash County is near-evenly divided between white and Black residents, and in recent presidential elections, it was near-evenly divided by its results. Joe Biden was the winner in rural county in 2020. Donald Trump won it by a razor-thin margin.
There are a lot of people that want to stay out the way. “They see the Trump signs, they see what’s going on in the school boards, city council. They’re just like, ‘I’m going to stay out of it.’ We’re trying to tell them there’s an organization that specifically focuses on rural areas to pull those folks out.”
Bermudez-Bey said that down Home’s platform was to help the poor and working class get basic needs met like housing and education. In an election season where they are mostly focused on local races, the organization will sometimes endorse a candidate from the other side. Most of their time is spent urging residents — especially residents of color — to get out and vote.
North Carolina’s state Democratic chair, Anderson Clayton, is also focused on turnout this election. The youngest party chair in the country is from Person County.
“Joe Biden lost the state by 74,000 votes in 2020, which we know is a field margin, and that can come from all of our counties across the state,” Clayton told NPR in October.
She made reaching out to rural Democrats a key part of her strategy. The stakes are high as the Tarheel State has more rural voters than any other swing state.
Back in Nashville, Down Home door knockers make their pitch to another resident. Sean Jones says he plans on voting, though in the presidential race, he hasn’t made up his mind. He said he was leaning towards Harris.
Jones said that he went to see his brother in prison this weekend and was thinking about voting. He wanted me to support Trump, but I wanted to support his opponent, Kamala. So I’m still trying to, like, look into the politics as far as what’s what and who’s who.”
So soon before Election Day, finding a true undecided voter can feel like a rarity. Down Home is always close to them, even within their own ranks. While he led a group of canvassers for a group that has endorsed Harris, the undecided Adon Bermudez-Bey told NPR he was also undecided on the presidential race.
Bermudez-Bey was concerned about whether or not Harris supported Israel during the ongoing war in the Middle East. He has a deadline for himself by the last day of voting in North Carolina to decide between Harris and a third-party candidate.
Lynn Jones spoke to NPR after casting her ballot for Harris, she said that Donald Trump is for billionaires and not for working class people.
Her neighbor Donnell Jones, no relation, was by her side. He had cast his first vote in his life. Lynn said that the two of them had been talking recently about going to the polls together.
Lynn said that he thought that this was something that he should have seen a long time ago. “But I know sometimes people are stuck in their ways, so I didn’t pressure him. I said, ‘Hey, let’s go vote together then.’
If Democrats win Nash County, and win North Carolina, it will be through thousands of interactions like what Down Home is doing — and on a more casual level, what Lynn Jones did with her neighbor Donnell. The key will be nudging others to show up and vote, regardless of how disengaged or skeptical they were at the beginning of those conversations.
It is one factor that Harris is not campaigning on directly, but that is still important to many voters. Deja Boston said it’s historical for her as a Black woman.
Inflation has leveled out over the past year, but the topic remains raw, and politically potent, for conservatives. Derek Nipper, who was working the state Republican Party’s booth, said for him, the election is about “my wallet. I remember when Trump was in office, I was able to put up not a lot, but maybe $200 a paycheck.” “I’m struggling to make it to the end of the day with money in my pocket,” he said.
Many Republicans see the race differently — even Dr. Bill Pincus, who was manning North Carolina Right To Life’s booth at the fair. Pincus talked a lot about how he thinks life starts at conception and that abortion rights are about protecting life. He said the economy when we asked what the election was about. “I think the real thing is everybody’s hurting, because prices have gone up so much,” he said.
The North Carolina legislature passed a 12-week abortion ban in the wake of the Dobbs decision. It’s a major theme of Democratic campaign ads, and Harris is campaigning on signing a federal law restoring protections previously granted by Roe V. Wade.
“Don’t make me start crying over the abortion thing. It tears my heart out of my chest,” Lew said. “Because if a 12-year-old, 13-year-old, 16-year-old — if they’re impregnated,” she said, trailing off. I need the right to make a decision.
Like many Democrats, Debbie Lew said it came down to reproductive rights and the ongoing fallout in state legislatures across the country from the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision overturning Roe V. Wade.
The NPR team went to the state fair in order to get a better idea of where things stand away from the campaign rallies. Amid the midway rides and fried food stands, we learned three key things about the race in North Carolina.
The swing state party crashed in 2024 after Vice President John Harris replaced President Joe Biden on the Democratic ticket.
Political observers had expected Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Nevada, Arizona, and Georgia to vote on whether or not to send Donald Trump back to the White House.
The state Trump won by the smallest margin in 2020 is still a focus for both the Democrats and Republicans as this year’s race enters its final stretch. In North Carolina, there are polls showing a close race.
How Did the North Carolina Fairgrounds Get Its Kicks? Comments on the Defiant Post-Assassination Campaign of the Convicted Felon
“I get to the point where I’m ready for the election to be over,” Deja Boston told us, as she, her husband Rahmode, and their six-month-old-daughter Kynslei stopped near the North Carolina Democratic Party’s booth. She sees a lot of ads. The Bostons tick off the incoming political content: text messages… television… radio…
The election wormed its way into the fairgrounds, too: vendors were selling airbrushed t-shirts featuring Trump’s defiant post-assassination attempt fist pump, with the caption “You Missed!” A beef jerky stand converted its tip jar into a straw poll, with one cup featuring an image of Harris and the other of Trump. Trump had a 12-to-$0 lead in the unscientific poll.
The Republican lieutenant governor is campaigning for governor, so he’s playing a major role in many of the ads. Not necessarily his own campaign’s ads, but rather, Democratic attack ads trying to link Republicans up and down the ballot to Robinson’s controversial statements and policy stances, especially his strict opposition to abortion rights.
The Trump campaign, as well as other Republicans, have distanced themselves from Robinson in the wake of CNN’s report on his racist and offensive comments made on a pornographic website. He has a group of people that still support him.
“He’s very vocal, he’s very opinionated,” said Faye New. Some of the things he said were taken out of context. They don’t say the whole thing. They just see one line and say, ‘Oh, that sounds nasty, let’s put it in there.’”
Faye New is an unabashed Republican hardliner. A bright pink Women for RobINSON cap and shirt that reads “I’m Voting for the Convicted Felon” is what makes us approach her. A New York jury found Trump guilty of fibbing in a criminal case. He’s facing felony charges in three additional cases, as well.)
She’s quick with an answer on everything, except … the outcome of what’s shaping up to be an incredibly tight race in North Carolina. Both the Trump and Harris campaigns have spent millions of dollars in the state, and have returned multiple times a week for campaign events. Polls show a near-deadlocked race in a state that hasn’t voted Democrat on the presidential level since 2008. “It’s tighter than I like it,” New concedes. “But you never know ‘til it’s all said and done.”
Lew and Debbie Love have homemade hats with a blue colon and red cursive LA, which they wore when they supported Harris. They voted earlier that day, but they aren’t likely to share any opinions with New except for their anxiety about the result. “My gut starts churning at 2 a.m., and I can’t get it off my mind,” Debbie Love said. I just pray for it.