WASHINGTON, D.C. -- From his GOP convention speech to his remarks before boarding Air Force One Tuesday, President Donald Trump has spent the past week railing against violence in America, pointing to Portland, Ore. and Kenosha, Wis.

“A lot of people are looking at what’s happening to these Democrat-run cities and they’re disgusted,” he said before flying to Wisconsin Tuesday. “They can’t believe this is taking place in our country. I can’t believe it either.”

The president’s "law and order" message is an apparent appeal to suburban voters ahead of November.

In North Carolina, the suburbs could be make-or-break in the tight presidential contest, according to Catawba College Prof. Michael Bitzer.

“It is really within the suburbs of North Carolina where I think this election is going to be determined,” Bitzer said.

During the 2018 midterm elections, the suburbs in North Carolina and across the country tended to trend blue compared with 2016, helping lead to Democrats taking control of the U.S. House of Representatives.

In Union County outside Charlotte, for example, Mr. Trump won 63 percent of the vote in 2016. Although not a perfect comparison, in 2018, Mark Harris, the Republican congressional candidate there, won the county with 59 percent of the vote.

President Trump is not the first candidate to employ a "law and order" campaign message. Richard Nixon did so in the 1960s, for example.

However, Bitzer said it is unclear if that playbook will be as effective in 2020, in no small part because the suburbs themselves have evolved over the decades, becoming more diverse.

“These Republican suburbs in the south really heralded the south switching to the Republican party,” he said. “They could be the early indicators of a much more competitive south with this year’s election.”

There are, of course, other factors at play that could also influence suburban voters, including the status of the coronavirus.

For his part, earlier this week, Democratic challenger Joe Biden railed against the president’s handling of the pandemic, saying he wants an America safe not just from crime and looting but also from COVID-19.

Biden also accused Trump of stoking violence.

"He keeps telling us, if he were president you'd feel safe. Well, he is president, whether he knows it or not," Biden said.