US election: Trump takes lead in North Carolina

Donald Trump has taken the lead in another key swing state – one of three the President needs to take to win re-election.

Donald Trump has taken the lead in another key swing state.

The New York Times currently gives the President a 94 per cent chance of taking North Carolina, which comes with 15 electoral votes.

Mr Trump has pulled ahead of Joe Biden and currently leads by nearly 70,000 votes.

Trump campaign senior adviser Jason Miller said he was confident of a win.

“All of the remaining North Carolina counties are ones we won in 2016. We’ll be fine there, likely winning by 50,000-70,000 votes,” he tweeted.

Later he added, “With Wake County now fully reporting, Donald Trump will win North Carolina.”

With Wake County now fully reporting, @realDonaldTrump will win North Carolina. https://t.co/NBz2acyhFH

— Jason Miller (@JasonMillerinDC) November 4, 2020

WHAT THIS MEANS FOR THE ELECTION’S OUTCOME

There may be 50 states in America, but when the votes are counted, just a handful of them – North Carolina included – decide who wins the presidential election.

In this election, 15 states fall into the category of a “swing state” or “battleground state” – meaning they could conceivably be won by either Donald Trump or Joe Biden.

As for the rest, we already know who will win them: Mr Trump stands no chance whatsoever in Democratic Party strongholds like New York and California, for example, while he’s likely unbeatable in heavily Republican territory, like Alabama or Oklahoma.

Worth 15 electoral votes, the more competitive of the two Carolinas is usually close, but almost always ends up voting Republican. The sole exception since 1980 came in Barack Obama’s 2008 landslide, but even then, he only claimed the state by a fraction of one per cent.

North Carolina was one of only two states Mitt Romney promptly won back for the Republicans four years later.

Mr Trump won it by three per cent, and the polls suggested it would be close again, with Mr Biden holding a very precarious lead.

The ultimate goal is to reach a threshold of 270 electoral votes. Winning the popular vote in any given state will earn a candidate its entire haul of electoral votes, and move them that much closer to victory.