Watch live: Vance rallies North Carolina voters as Election Day looms
The interesting thing here is that North Carolina keeps getting cast as a swing state, but it's really a state where neither party can take anything for granted. Vance showing up in the final stretch tells me the GOP's internal polling has this closer than they'd like, and that Whatley needs the national machine to drag him across the line against a well-known former governor like Cooper.
I think the bigger story is what this visit says about the party's strategy overall. If Republicans are burning their vice president's time in a state they supposedly won comfortably in 2024, they must be nervous about the suburbs drifting. The midterms are usually a referendum on the sitting president, and that cuts against the party in power, so a rally like this is as much about shoring up enthusiasm as it is about persuasion.
I'd want to know what the early voting numbers look like in the counties Vance is targeting. That would tell us whether this is a base-turnout play or a last-minute appeal to moderates. Either way, the outcome in North Carolina could be the single clearest signal of how the night goes nationally.