President Joe Biden is visiting North Carolina on Thursday to highlight $82 million in new investments that would connect 16,000 households to high-speed internet.

Biden’s reelection campaign has made winning North Carolina and its 16 electoral votes one of its top priorities in this year's presidential election. 

Biden narrowly lost the state in 2020 by 1.34 percentage points to former President Donald Trump, the current Republican front-runner in what will likely be a political rematch.

Biden plans to use his stop in Raleigh to stress that his administration is connecting poorer communities and businesses to the digital economy.

Polling shows that the economy has been a weakness for Biden, a reflection of inflation hitting a four-decade high in June 2022. Easing inflation rates since then have yet to pull Biden's approval ratings back to their levels at the start of his presidency.

One way the administration says it has lowered costs for families is by providing discounted internet service to 880,000 households in North Carolina.

The administration is committing a total of $3 billion to build out and fund internet connections in North Carolina. Estimates from the administration are that an additional 300,000 of the state's residents will be able to access the internet by the end of 2026.

Biden's planned trip comes a week after Vice President Kamala Harris went to Charlotte to tout the administration's funding for mental health in schools.

The trip also comes as primary election season officially gets underway. The Iowa Caucuses were held Monday. North Carolina primary voters will cast their ballots on Super Tuesday, March 5.

Since Biden took office, companies have announced $16 billion in investments in North Carolina. That includes Wolfspeed's new $5 billion semiconductor plant and Vinfast's $4 billion electric vehicle factory in Chatham County, the administration said.

Toyota is also building a new EV battery plant in central North Carolina.

Those big projects together are expected to create more than 10,000 jobs. 

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