On break from court, Trump takes his campaign to North Carolina
WILMINGTON, N.C. — On a weekend reprieve from the courtroom, former president Donald Trump was to campaign Saturday in North Carolina as he juggles legal troubles and his rematch against President Biden.
Trump’s evening stop in the coastal city of Wilmington marks his first rally since his criminal hush money trial began last week with jury selection in Manhattan. The occasion offers the former president a fresh chance to amplify claims that his multiple pending indictments are an establishment conspiracy to take him down — and, by extension, squelch the voters who elected him eight years ago.
“They want to keep me off the campaign trail,” Trump insisted last week in Harlem, where he visited a neighborhood convenience store and addressed a throng of media outside. Rather than pursue violent criminals, he alleged, “They go after Trump.”
The event Saturday also underscores the importance of North Carolina, a presidential battleground that Trump won by less than 1.5 percentage points over Biden in 2020. That was the closest margin of any state that Trump won. Saturday will be the second time in as many months that Trump has come to the state. Biden has traveled to North Carolina twice this year, and Vice President Kamala Harris has been four times.
“The presidential race is going to run through North Carolina,” said Governor Roy Cooper, a Democrat, in a recent interview.
North Carolina is one of seven states that both the Trump and Biden campaigns have said they will dedicate significant campaign resources to winning. Trump has insisted he wants to widen the map, even into his native New York, which is heavily Democratic. Most Republicans, though, agree that Trump will have a difficult path to an Electoral College majority if Biden were to win North Carolina’s 16 electoral votes. Trump tacitly acknowledged North Carolina’s status by tapping then-state Republican chairman Michael Whatley to lead his campaign’s effective takeover of the Republican National Committee.