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President Donald Trump campaign rally at the Fayetteville Regional Airport on Saturday, Sept. 19, 2020.(Photo: Andrew Craft, The Fayetteville Observer)

President Donald Trumps frequent visits to North Carolina are a sign: the stateand its 15 Electoral College votes are critical to his effort to win reelection.

He has made seven appearances here since July 27 four in September alone. Two stops were on Aug. 21:He visited Charlotte for the COVID-subdued GOP convention and observed a food assistance program in the western mountains.When he held his signature rallies, thousands of energetic supporters waited hours to see him.

Democratic nominee Joe Biden has held back on public appearances due to the coronavirus, instead primarily conductingonline gatherings with surrogates to boost support. He had a low-key visit to Charlotte in September, and vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris made three stops in Raleigh one day near the end of the month. Bidens wife, Jill, campaigned for him in Fayetteville on Oct. 6.

Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden waves as he boards a plane at Charlotte Douglas International Airport in Charlotte, N.C., Wednesday, Sept. 23, 2020, en route to Wilmington, Delaware.(Photo: Carolyn Kaster, AP)

Current polls

Biden leads Trump by a slight margin in North Carolina, whichWestern Carolina University political scientist Chris Cooper called the most-important swing state in deciding the election.

Political scientist Chris Cooper of Western Carolina University.(Photo: Western Carolina University)

I think there is a path to victory for Biden that doesnt go down Tobacco Road, but I dont think the same is true for President Trump, Cooper said.

Political scientist David McLennan of Meredith University said he thinks Republicans must prioritize North Carolina to keep the White House, particularly if President Trump loses one of the Midwestern states that he won kind of in a surprise manner.

Its likely Trump will visit once or twice more before Election Day, he said.

Political scientist David McLennan of Meredith University.(Photo: Contributed)

North Carolina is known as a purple state: Democrat Barack Obama just barely won (by 0.3%or 14,177 votes) in 2008 then lost toRepublican Mitt Romney here by 2% in 2012.

Trump had a relatively solid 3.7% margin of victory in North Carolina in 2016, but due to third-party voters, it was below 50% of the total.

2016 margin

Polling average at this stage in 2016

Now Trump and Biden are vying for every person they can get to fill out a ballot.

The battlegrounds within this battleground state range from Republican-friendly rural areas toDemocratic-friendly cities. In between are the suburbs, which appear to be changing shade from red to purple as voters move out of the cities or settle in North Carolina from other states.

Triad, Triangle media markets

Two of North Carolinas major television marketsthe Triad (Greensboro, Winston-Salem and High Point) and the Triangle (Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill) reflect a growing and solidifying urban-rural divide in North Carolina between the densely Democratic cities and Republican-dominated but sparsely populated rural areas.

Trump won North Carolina in 2016 largely on the strength of the rural counties. The question this year: Can multiple rural counties again pull in enough Trump votes to overcome Democratic numbers in the cities?

Take for example the Winston-Salem area.Hillary Clinton won Forsyth County and Winston-Salem, 53% to 42.6% in 2016.

Some 40 minutes away is Mount Airy, the hometown of actor Andy Griffith of the classic Andy Griffith Show. On Main Street in early September, Trump signs and memorabilia were prominent and prevalent among the Mayberry themed shops, restaurants and tourist attractions inspired by the TV shows fictional town.No Biden signs were visible on the main drag.

In 2016, Trump led Mount Airy and Surry County 73.5% to Clintons 23.3%.

Griffith, who died in 2012, used to record campaign ads for North Carolina Democrats. He also reprised his Sheriff Andy Taylor role in a campaign ad for Barack Obama in 2008.

Hillary Clinton won the major urban central cities 66%-31%. Trump won rural counties 60%-40%, said political scientist Michael Bitzer of Catawba College.Bitzer routinely does deep-dive analyses of voter trends and election results.

Political scientist Michael Bitzer of Catawba College.(Photo: Catawba College)

Suburban counties near major metros voted 65%-33% for Trump, he said, while suburbs closer to the cities voted 49%-48% for Clinton.

A special election in 2019 for the 9th Congressional District could signal how the 2020 electionturnsout in North Carolina, Bitzer said.

The 9th District runs along the southern side of North Carolina from southeast Charlotte on one end to rural farmland 150 miles away in southeastern North Carolina.

In 2016, the district voted 58.2% to 41.8% in favor of the Republican incumbent, a16.4 point lead. TheDemocratic challenger did not get support from the national party.

In last years special election ordered because of fraud in the 2018 election the Congressional seat was vacant, and Republicans had a newcandidate. Democrats put millions of dollars behind a viable challenger, one who had trailed by just 0.3% in the 2018results before the contest was invalidated.

A Republican won in 2019, but the margin of victory was just 2 points, far less thanthe 16.4 points just three years prior.

In 2016,a Republicanwon the Democrat-heavy Charlotte-Mecklenburg part of the 9th District by 16.2 points. In 2019, a new Republican lost the Charlotte-Mecklenburg portion by 12.6 points.

In suburban and Republican-dominated Union County next door to Charlotte, the GOPs lead from 2016 to 2019 shrunk from 36.4 points to 20.5 points.

If 2019s North Carolina 9th election was the canary in the coal mine, how big do the Democrats run up those urban suburbs? And then in the surrounding suburban counties, whats the Republican margin of victory? Is it 20 points? Is it 15 points? Bitzer said.If it gets below 20, theres something theres something dynamic going on."

Robeson County

Impoverished and rural, Robeson County in southeast North Carolina was a strong Democratic territory for decades, although in recent years a few Republicans there have won seats on the county commission and in the legislature.

In 2016, the county favored Trump for president, shocking many longtime observers. He beat Clinton there 50.82% to 46.54%.

LUMBERTON -- Lara Trump, daughter-in-law of presidential candidate Donald Trump, poses for photos with Jaime Sacry of Lumberton and Sacry's baby, Sadie Hammonds, and Sacry's son, 6-year-old Silas Hammonds. Trump visited Lumberton on Sept. 23, 2016, for the grand opening of the Robeson County Republican Party campaign headquarters.(Photo: Paul Woolverton/The Fayetteville Observer)

In 2012, Obama led Romney 58.18%to 40.77% meaning there was an 11.6-point shift from Democrats in 2012 to Republicans in 2016.

Trump won Robeson County even though on Election Day 2016, Republicans made up only 12.62% of the 76,012 registered voters. Democrats had 66.8%.

Hurricane Matthew and its neighborhood-destroying floods may have been a factor in 2016. About 2,000 fewer people voted in 2016 in Robeson County than in 2012.

But key to Trumps win in Robeson County arehis policies and the social conservative values the Republican Party embraces, said Jarrod Lowery, a Robeson County Republican activist and elected representative on the Lumbees tribal government.

Numerous factories that employed generations shut down in and around Robeson County since the 1990s.Trumps arguments for fair trade vs. free trade, for American manufacturing and against the North American Free Trade Agreementresonated with the county's voters, Lowery said.

My mother actually worked for a manufacturer over in Scotland County, Lowery said. They closed and moved south of the border.

GOP positions on abortion, private property rights, traditional marriage, religious faith and patriotism attract Native American voters in Robeson County, said Lowery, who is a member of the Lumbee Tribe.

The Lumbees are headquartered in Robeson County, and it is the largest American Indian tribe east of the Mississippi. Of Robeson Countys 74,663 registered voters (as of mid-September), 35.1% are American Indian, 27.4% are Black and 28.5% are white.

Republicans have been active inRobeson Countyfor three yearsto reelect Trump, Lowery said, and the campaign sent paid staff there.

Lara Trump, the presidents daughter-in-law, campaigned in the county in 2016 and again this year in September. The president alsoheld a rally in Fayetteville in neighboring Cumberland Countyin September. Hisson, Donald Trump Jr., scheduled an appearance in Robeson County this month.

In share of registered voters, Robeson County Democrats now are down almost 10 points vs. 2016, while Republicans are up almost 2 points. Unaffiliated voters are up nearly 8 points.

A new development that might pull some Lumbees to Biden: He announced this monththat he supports their decade-long request to get full federal recognition as an American Indian tribe. The Lumbees have only partial recognition, and as a result, their tribe is ineligible for significant federal benefits and grants that fully recognized tribes receive.

8th Congressional District

Some Democrats and Republicans have said North Carolinas 8th Congressional District, and in particular Fayetteville and Cumberland County on its eastern end, will be a bellwether for North Carolina as a whole.

The success we have in this district will determine whether or not we win, we reelect Thom Tillis to the U.S. Senate, Republican U.S. Rep. Richard Hudson said at a campaign event at the GOPs Fayetteville headquarters in August. And this congressional district how we do in this district is going to determine whether Donald Trump wins North Carolina. Its going to determine whether hes reelected president or not.

U.S. Rep. Richard Hudson speaks at the Cumberland County Republican Party headquarters on Wednesday, Aug. 19, 2020.(Photo: Andrew Craft, The Fayetteville Observer)

Hudson is running for reelectionagainst Patricia Timmons-Goodson of Fayetteville, a Black Democrat who has previously won statewide elections to the North Carolina Court of Appeals and North Carolina Supreme Court. Her campaign consultant, Thomas Mills, said Timmons-Goodson will boost turnout for other Democrats on the ballot including Biden by bolstering Black turnout and due to her popularity among Democrats in her hometown.

Democratic U.S. House candidate Patricia Timmons-Goodson of Fayetteville.(Photo: Raul F. Rubiera/The Fayetteville Observer)

Shes creating excitement, Mills said.

The 8th District runs through central North Carolina from the Charlotte suburbs in Cabarrus County,which has been gaining Democratic voters,through the Piedmont region and Moore County,a Republican stronghold known for top-level golf courses,to Fayetteville and Fort Bragg. Bragg is the nations largest military base, with 53,700 uniformed personnel.

Lower-ballot candidates sometimes help presidential candidates, said political scientist Cooper.

Its exactly the kind of race where reverse coattails can happen and can be critical, Cooper said. I think that is absolutely possible that that could happen, and that it could motivate the African-American vote.

Charlotte suburbs

Democratic consultant Mills sees hope for Biden in suburban counties around North Carolinas major metros, such as fast-growing Cabarrus and Union counties outside Charlotte.

Campaign photo of Pam De Maria, chairwoman of the Union County North Carolina Democratic Party and candidate for the state legislture.(Photo: Contributed)

Mills and other Democrats, including Union Party Democratic Party chairwoman Pam De Maria, have no illusions that those heavily Republican counties will vote blue. Instead, they hope ranks of voters moving to these counties from other parts of North Carolina and from out of state and who arent joining the Republican Party will blunt the GOP.

We have a lot of different people moving into the area, obviously, and with that comes a lot of different perspective, said De Maria, an out-of-state transplantherself 21 years ago.

She also is a candidate for the state House,running against Republican House Rep. Dean Arp. My chances are slim, but you never know, she said.

De Maria said she an her fellow Democrats are highly energized in their get-out-the-vote efforts.

Were moving the needle, little by little, she said.

Some notable numbers:

Six states above all others have emerged as the top electoral prizes in the 2020 race for president: Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Florida and North Carolina.

They represent 101 of the 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House.These arent the only battlegrounds in 2020, but their size and competitiveness has made them the states most likely to decide the presidency.

In this series, the USA TODAY Network offers a closer look at the battlegrounds within the battlegrounds the keys to the political map in the states that are likely to choose the next president.

Paul Woolverton can be reached at pwoolverton@gannett.com or 910-261-4710.

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Trump needs North Carolina in 2020 election, but the swing state is a toss-up - Citizen Times