Donald Trump’s North Carolina Death Spiral: Even White Suburbanites Flee the “Idiot”
Mitt Romney managed to claw back the state into the Republican column in 2012 by juicing rural and suburban turnout enough to overcome the Democratic advantage in the cities. At the start of the 2016 election cycle, the state was expected to be one of the most hard-fought battlegrounds.
And up until a few weeks ago, the Tar Heel State indeed presented a toss-up: Depending on which polling model and aggregator you chose to believe, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton were running about even in mid-September in North Carolina, with Trump probably enjoying a slight edge.
But after two bad debate performances, the release of the “grab them by the pussy” tape and an ever-growing number of sexual assault allegations, Trump seems to be fading. All the recent North Carolina polling puts Hillary Clinton up by low- to mid-single digits. As of this writing, FiveThirtyEight has given Trump less than a 3-in-10 shot of winning the state.
More: Donald Trump’s North Carolina death spiral: Even white suburbanites flee the “idiot”