The Battle for the Nation's Soul Will be Won or Lost in North Carolina

Joe Biden has a >99% to win the election if he wins North Carolina. Source: FiveThirtyEight.

Think back to November 8th, 2016. Where were you? How were you feeling?

You probably went in confident. North Carolina, always at the center of Presidential elections, was ancillary that year. Maybe you thought it would go for Clinton, sure, but you knew that Clinton’s blue wall in the Midwest ensured electoral victory. You watched with mild disappointment as North Carolina voted for Trump, in part due to lackluster youth turnout, but you knew that didn’t matter. We had the blue wall to fall back on. We couldn’t lose, right?

Of course, you know what happened next. Andrea Mitchell reported that “the Clinton campaign was getting a little nervous in Michigan,” Trump’s lead was widening in Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin - which should have been a safe blue state - was too close to call. And then, before your eyes, the blue wall cracked. Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, essentially on their own, voted Donald J. Trump into office as the 45th President of the United States. This year, we can’t make the mistake of relying on the stability of the Blue Wall again.

In the four years since, we have watched our nation become a fundamentally different place than we could have envisioned during the Obama years. We have witnessed the President declare our developing allies to be “shithole countries,” a Republican party-wide conspiracy that COVID-19 is “the Democrat’s new hoax,” and wantonly tweeted threats of violence against Americans from the highest office in the land declaring that “when the looting starts, the shooting starts.” It is hard to square America in 2020 with Ronald Reagan’s vision of “a beacon, still a magnet for all who must have freedom, for all the pilgrims from all the lost places who are hurtling through the darkness, toward home.” Next week, we have a referendum on whether this is truly the character of our nation.

This year, President Trump finds himself similarly counted out. Again, Biden leads in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, seemingly preventing President Trump from a foreseeable path to 270 electoral votes. At the time of this writing, 538’s polling average gives Biden an 89% chance to win, with healthy margins in the Blue Wall states. This isn’t 2016, either. The polls have been much more stable, there are less undecided voters, and Biden has higher favorability. But it’s still so easy to daydream about Chuck Todd giving us the returns, telling us that the impregnable Blue Wall is collapsing once again. This may be irrational (although even after a post-2016 adjustment, 2018 midterm polls still underestimated Republican support in the Midwest), but we’re human. We are inevitably going to look at this election through 2016-tinted lenses. So, we must ask ourselves the fundamental question; what can we do about it?

Well, you know the answer: vote in North Carolina, get your friends to vote in North Carolina, and do everything you can to ensure a Biden victory in North Carolina. Our state can be won with turnout amongst young people. If a 2016-sized polling error occurs in the Midwest, Biden should still win Michigan and Wisconsin, but Pennsylvania would be in jeopardy. This would leave Biden at 258 electoral votes. Right here in North Carolina, we can fill in that gap with our invaluable 15 electors.

If it feels like some sick game to get over 270 electoral votes by cobbling together a map of states, that’s because it is. The defining issues of our time, like the COVID-19 response, racial equity, and health care ought to be decided by one person, one vote. Unfortunately, those aren’t the rules by which we play. To restore decency to our country, it is imperative that we find our way to 270 electoral votes. A victory right here in North Carolina can ensure it if the Blue Wall falters once more.

President Trump’s campaign is counting on another upset victory in the Midwest to carry him to the Presidency. It may not happen; in fact, it likely won’t. However, President Trump and most pundits believe that if he wins Pennsylvania, he will win a second term. He’s not counting on us Tar Heels to be a roadblock in his way. If we see that there’s another polling error in the Midwest, the consequences don’t have to be a second term for President Trump. If we here in North Carolina do our part, then it can be on the hallowed grounds of the oldest public university of the country that we close off a path to 270 votes for the most undemocratic President in American history. We have the power within the body of the UNC community to end the reign of Donald J. Trump.