Editors Note: This is the first in a two-part series, looking at how the Trump and Harris campaigns are focused on winning North Carolina.

The campaign of Vice President Kamala Harris is devoting significant resources to flip North Carolina blue for the first time since Barack Obama won the state in 2008.

What You Need To Know

  • A Democratic presidential candidate hasn't won North Carolina since 2008

  • The Harris campaign is devoting resources to flip the state

  • Harris and Walz have made several stops in North Carolina

The state is a battleground for the Harris and Trump campaigns, with polls showing the race neck and neck.

President Joe Biden lost North Carolina in 2020 to former President Donald Trump by just under 75,000 votes, or 1.4%.

But the Harris campaign believes it can flip the state blue this election.

“We know that we’ve built a campaign that is all across the state that is meeting voters where they are,” said Harris North Carolina campaign manager David Berrios. 

Related: Trump campaign pushes 'winning formula' as Harris works to flip N.C.  

Trump won the key battleground state in 2016 and in 2020. He beat Joe Biden by 1.4%, or 74,000 votes, in 2020.

Rural voters were key to him winning, and this year, the state’s new Republican chairman, Jason Simmons, is replicating the party’s approach while not ignoring the state’s cities and suburbs.

“You’ve got that winning formula, and again we’ve been able to with our volunteers, with the data, continue to drill down where are those voters that are going to turn out for President Trump… getting out to them, getting in front of them and then getting them out to vote,” Simmons said.

The campaign said it has 27 Democratic coordinated field offices in 24 counties, including in Republican counties like Gaston and Jackson, where Democrats hope to narrow the margins. The Trump campaign said it has 50 coordinated Republican offices, many of which are in existing county GOP offices.

The Harris campaign also has an office in Cabarrus County, a suburb of Charlotte.

For years, Cabarrus County was solidly Republican.

But as the Charlotte suburbs grew, so did Cabarrus, bringing more college-educated residents, a group that has been tilting more Democratic.

In 2012, the difference between Republican Mitt Romney and Barack Obama in Cabarrus County was 20 points. In 2020, the difference between Trump and Biden was only nine points.

Related: Decision 2024 updates

The Harris campaign is hoping it can close the gap even more in November. But it also must run up the votes in the Democratic strongholds of the state’s big cities, including Charlotte and Raleigh.

“We’re investing in communities, yes, like Wake and Meck, but all over the state,” Berrios said.

The Harris campaign also said it has 250 paid staffers in North Carolina, which is almost four times the 65 people the Trump campaign said it employs in the state. The Trump campaign also said it has more than 150 paid canvassers working for allied organizations.

The Harris campaign said more than 26,000 volunteers have signed on in the state since Harris replaced Biden atop the Democratic ticket.

Democrats have also paid staff on college campuses with a goal of energizing students, a key demographic for the party, to the polls.

“She’s got an even better infrastructure built into the ground than Barack Obama did in 2008,” said Catawba College politics professor Michael Bitzer.

But Trump has won North Carolina twice and his campaign dismisses the operation the Harris campaign is building as just playing catch-up.

“We know that this is going to be a close election. We’ve built a campaign, built to scale, we started it earlier than ever before and we feel confident in the level of infrastructure and the winning message in the candidate," Berrios said.