What Can Tip The Race In The Tar Heel State
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I'm Charles Payne. I'm Kat Timpf. I'm Stuart Varney. And this is the Fox News Rundown. Wednesday, October 23rd, 2024. I'm Dave Anthony.

Millions of Americans have already voted early in record numbers in the battleground state of North Carolina. Look, Republicans have shown a tendency already to be more enthusiastic to vote than Democrats have. However, we do not know today whether that enthusiastic early vote still would have happened eventually or on Election Day. We speak with Fox's Bill Hemmer. I'm Jessica Rosenthal.

It's all about the groups. As each candidate shores things up with less than two weeks left in the presidential race, they're reaching out to demographics that may be drifting. For Democrats... You know, releasing an agenda for Black men is an obvious sign that that's somewhere that they're weak. And on the Republican side, the focus is on women and picking up those votes Democrats may be losing. I think the campaign is certainly acting like they are ahead. And I think Trump trying to close out on a positive message...

And I'm Tommy Lahren. I've got the final word on the Fox News Rundown. Election Day is still almost two weeks away.

But more than 15 million Americans have already voted early. We love our country and we believe in the foundational principles that are at stake in this election. Vice President Harris went to three battleground states to start this week. Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin calling former President Trump increasingly unstable. It's all about himself.

and his personal grievances. Now, former President Trump calls her our worst vice president with a low IQ.

He's campaigned in another toss-up state the last two days, North Carolina, with a rally last night in Greensboro after three stops on Monday. We want a landslide that is too big to rig. Too big to rig. That was at a Trump rally in Greenville before a meeting with church leaders in Concord. The former president's first stop in North Carolina Monday was the flood-ravaged Asheville area, meeting with Hurricane Helene victims. I'm with you.

And the American people are with you all the way. Again, critical of the federal storm response and FEMA spending. Again, drawing the ire of Democrats who claim the former president is spreading misinformation in one of the seven states too close to call in the Fox News power rankings with 16 electoral votes at stake.

North Carolina historically has been somewhat elusive for Democrats. Bill Hemmer co-hosts America's Newsroom, 9 to 11 a.m. Eastern weekdays on the Fox News Channel. And on election night, he'll be there as part of the coverage, breaking down the results. Not for Barack Obama, but, you know, he won two terms, but only won North Carolina once.

which is very interesting. And they've been trying to like get over the hump. Right. And Trump won it twice, right? Yeah, that's right. Well, yes, correct on that. And closer in 2020 than 2016. And it appears just based on a lot of research, Charlotte is Mecklenburg County, most populated, one of the most populated counties in the whole state.

and they haven't been able to close the deal in Mecklenburg County. If they can, they're going to have a real good shot at winning the state. Now, there are a lot of variables out there, and we can get into this, whether or not Helene affects what's happening in western North Carolina or what the early indications are saying on the early vote. But you're talking about an urban area, and that has been traditionally in all of these states that are battleground states, Democrats need to do well in those places.

those populated cities. Yeah, what I find interesting about Mecklenburg is it's not just urban, it's also suburban. And the counties that surround it also, they've always been reliably Republican, but we don't know how they're going to vote with Trump going after a third term. I will say, as of this conversation, in North Carolina, the in-person vote, which is something I look at

every day. Sort of, kind of obsessed with it, actually. This is the early voting stuff. Well, there's a lot of really smart people you can follow on X, and they're professors, and they're political scientists, they're mathematicians, statisticians, and you can follow how they're evaluating this, but I just want to get this number out. Okay. As of our conversation right now, there is just shy of a million people who have voted in person. You've talked about suburban voters, like in Mecklenburg County, there has been a large gender gap. Yeah.

in the polling pretty much nationwide. The support's there for men, for former President Trump, but like a mirror, it's just the same for women, for Vice President Harris. Is this as much of a gap as you've seen? It could be. I'm definitely as big as I've seen in the polling, but whether that turns out that way, I don't know. If it does, yes. You know, women are on one side and men are on the other. But since we're talking about North Carolina, I think it's good for listeners to understand that, you

You know, when you're looking at that map, you know, it's a beautiful state, right? You know, you've got the coastline on the east and you've got the mountains in the west. But in between there, you've got Charlotte at the bottom, a little bit of a triangle to get this in your head. Due north of there is a county called Guilford, and that's Greensboro. And then east of there is Raleigh, and that's Wake County. And they kind of make a bit of a triangle of sorts.

One of the things that I'm most curious about, and similar to Georgia, but for the sake of this conversation, North Carolina, how have the demographics in North Carolina changed since 2020? We got an indication of that a little bit in 2022, but not at the presidential level. And I don't know if there is a hidden factor in there that we have not seen since the census of 2020. Is this all COVID related? No, I think...

It is, yes, going back to 2020. People moving out of Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, going to a lower tax state, a state with better weather. Right. Maybe better job opportunities. Or you take your job with you and work remotely. You could do that. Or maybe younger people have decided to move there. We know that's the case in metro Atlanta. That was apparent in 2020. How similar is it in a state like North Carolina? I just don't know what that intangible is now. All right. You talked about the mountains.

We had Hurricane Helene a couple of weeks ago, and it was obviously devastating to the Asheville area. And they're still dealing with that now and the recovery and the cleanup could take a long time in the rebuilding for people. It's become, of course, a big political issue with the storm response and former President Trump's been there and he's calling it a terrible response and he'll do better.

We don't know what that factor is in this race either. Yeah, so I've crunched the numbers. 2020 is our best comparison for the sake of this conversation. There were 25 counties affected in western North Carolina. Of the 25, the most populated is called Buncombe, B-U-N-C-O-M-B-E. That's where Asheville is located.

Buncombe is one of these blue dots you find in America today where a lot of progressives, liberals or Democrats choose to live in a particular county. Dane County is a really good example in Wisconsin. Also, south central part of the state, heavily Democratic, just like Buncombe. Surrounded by Republican. Surrounded by red, not exclusively red, but pretty close to it.

So Buncombe had a net gain off the top of my head. I think it was 43,000 votes for Joe Biden in 2020. But the other 24 counties, two dozen counties, were a net gain for Trump by about 270. Wow. That's a big difference. Maybe 260. But by my calculation, it was a net gain in those 25 counties for Trump.

by 220,000 votes. Well, you know how close the state was. I think it was 74,000 in the end in favor of Trump. So could it be a factor? Yes. What I'm seeing though, just anecdotally from our reporting that we've been there and our reporters on the ground is

Even on Monday, when early voting started, the lines were long. That was Asheville. That was Buncombe. Yeah. And every time we talk to people more and more, they give us the indication. And on our program on Tuesday morning, we had a fellow on there from Buncombe, but he was clearly a Trump supporter because he was at his event that happened on Monday. And he gives us the indication. He goes, every day we're getting better. OK. Every day it's cleaner.

Every day we're getting more junk off the street. So you got two more weeks of that. And A, ask yourself this. Are you more inclined to make sure your vote counts or are you dissuaded by the factors of Mother Nature that you've been dealt with? Yeah. And maybe more roads open, maybe more areas make it easier for people to get to a polling place or to do that. But

but do you think the politics of the storm response? I mean, that's the toughest thing to gauge whether people are more motivated. They they're angry. I've heard people say, I haven't seen FEMA. And then FEMA is like, well, we're all over the state. I just don't know. Maybe could be a factor. Um,

I haven't thought about it specifically, but maybe it shows up in the exit polling or maybe it shows up in the voter analysis. Right. It's hard to really hard to predict. There's a guy, you know, I mentioned all these smart people that you can follow on. There's a fellow named Patrick Graffini. He did an analysis this week of North Carolina. And some of the stuff is what you would expect. But some of it was a bit of a surprise.

One of the counties that flip between 2016 and 2020, and flip counties are something that I'm always looking at. One of them is called New Hanover.

it's in the southeastern corner of the state. That's where Wilmington is. They've got a college there. And so they attract a little bit of this semi-blue dot, I would argue. But right below it, there's a county called New Brunswick. And this is where all the barrier islands, the beaches that you find of North Carolina, where the snowbirds go to retire. The snowbirds or the northerners or Midwesterns go to vacation during the summertime. That is one of the fastest growing counties in America. And nobody even knows about it. So...

There is a chance that you could get one of these surprise votes. And that's what Feeney did as he went north of there and into other areas that have more of an African-American population. Or they have a rural population, prominently white, that trends toward the Democratic Party. So there's a real mixed bag over there.

And frankly, I think as we sit here right now, there's a lot of votes up for grabs in that part of the state. So that's something we'll watch on election day. It is interesting. You talk about rural white a lot of times. People immediately think, well, that must be Trump, right? Because he does well with voters in rural areas. He does well, especially with men who don't have the college education or more of a blue collar. Well.

One of the things that he points out is the difference between rural voters in North Carolina and rural voters in Georgia. But they're right next to each other. Many times they're white on both sides, but the white voters in Georgia vote in force for Trump, and they have proven that.

The white voters in North Carolina can be a little different. So it's just something to watch. Yeah, you know, it is interesting because you go through all these different battleground states. Do you have a harder time gauging North Carolina or any of the other ones? Or are they all equally difficult? Well, you know, I've been really nerding out on the early posts. Yeah, well, you have the whole map and you have to touch the screen and everything. Here's what I'm thinking as of today. And all this could change. You know, I said this to our team two days ago. I said, is there a chance...

Do we actually know who's gonna win as we go into the morning of election day? Because early voting is so significant. So there's some data points out there and I'm not saying this is true. This is not empirical. It's just something to think about.

Look, Republicans have shown a tendency already to be more enthusiastic to vote than Democrats have. However, we do not know today whether that enthusiastic early vote still would have happened eventually or on Election Day. So North Carolina, if you had to go, who needs it more? I think the easiest way to understand it for Harris is to sweep the blue wall. Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, game over.

I think for Trump, the easiest way to understand it is Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania. He wins those, it's over. That's right. And so North Carolina... That's right.

So you think he needs it more? For Trump to lose North Carolina, he's got to go shopping out West, which he can do. You know, Arizona's got 11 electoral votes. Nevada has six. Or he goes up into that blue wall and steals one of those states. And in all likelihood, if it's not Pennsylvania, he probably... He's won Michigan before. Yeah, but Michigan's won less than North Carolina. You can't take it off the table. You need all the votes you can get. Right. Wisconsin, historically...

You know, with the exception of 2008, Wisconsin has been a very close state. Back in 2000, we were banging our heads against the wall in Tallahassee, Florida, trying to figure out whether it was Bush or Gore. Wisconsin was decided by like 0.2 percentage points. And then in 2004, between Kerry and Bush, no one even paid attention to it. It was 0.4 percentage points. Wow.

That's remarkable stuff. Ohio was the big one in that race. 118,000 votes. They gave it to Bush that night and gave him a second term. Bill Hemmer, you can watch him on America's Newsroom 9 to 11, Monday through Friday on the Fox News Channel on election night. He'll be at the wall touching the screen, going through all the results. Good to have you, Bill. Thank you, brother. Thanks a lot. Thanks. See you, Dave.

Pull up a chair and join me, Rachel Campos Duffy. And me, former U.S. Congressman Sean Duffy, as we share our perspective on the discussions happening at kitchen tables across America. Download From the Kitchen Table, The Duffys, at foxnewspodcasts.com or wherever you download podcasts.

It's the Will Kane Show. Watch it live at noon Eastern, Monday through Thursday on Fox News dot com or on the Fox News YouTube channel. And don't miss a show. Get the podcast five days a week at Fox News podcasts dot com or wherever you download your favorite podcasts. This is Tommy Lahren with your Fox News commentary coming up.

The Fox News Power Rankings Tuesday note right off the top, the coalitions for each party have shifted. For Vice President Harris, the big concern is less support among black men. Harris went on Charlemagne Tha God's radio show October 15th and talked about many things, including marijuana. My pledge is as president, I will work on decriminalizing it because I know exactly what's going on.

Exactly how those laws have been used to disproportionately impact certain populations and specifically black men. She's campaigning with former President Obama in Georgia tomorrow and former First Lady Michelle Obama Saturday in Michigan. For former President Trump, the GOP worries over a loss of support among some women voters. He did a town hall in Cummings, Georgia last week with Fox News host Harris Faulkner.

We really are the party for IVF. We want fertilization and it's all the way. And the Democrats tried to attack us on it. And we're out there on IVF even more than them. So we're totally in favor of it. The former president's also looking to increase support among groups that historically vote Democratic and still do by larger margins, like Black men. The former president had high praise for Latinos at a Hispanic roundtable at his hotel in the Miami area Tuesday. Now 2016, it was a little early.

But then I started producing for them and and they produced for the country because the level of of genius, entrepreneurship, energy that they have, it's an incredible community. And I like them and they liked me. And another group Harris is courting is disaffected Republicans. She appeared with former Wyoming Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney, who told voters in Michigan Monday. I would just remind people.

If you're at all concerned, you can vote your conscience and not ever have to say a word to anybody. And there will be millions of Republicans who do that on November 5th. Now, the Fox News power rankings also note that the same Fox poll that put Trump ahead of Harris by two points nationally shows her doing better by six and a half points in the swing states, with him ahead only in Arizona and North Carolina.

It's strange because we got two campaigns, right? We had the Biden campaign and everyone was in it trying to figure out how that was going to work out. And then we've had this truncated Harris campaign. Jessica Tarloff is a Democratic strategist and co-host of The Five. Which I think there are some benefits and drawbacks for her candidacy as a result of it being on the short time frame. But it is wild that it's two weeks away. And I don't know if you've

been hearing this in your world, but more and more people are saying to me that they think there's a pretty strong likelihood that we could know something really substantive on election night. Not necessarily who won. Pennsylvania will never change their ways, but that we're seeing the potential for trend lines that would be indicative of a win in either direction. Like,

If you're seeing depressed black vote for Kamala, for instance, especially with black men, or if you're seeing a surge in moderate to Republican white women that are breaking for Kamala or for Trump, if these low propensity, you know, bro vote types, the ones that Elon Musk has.

is targeting and the kind of crypto community, if they're actually showing up to vote, then you could feel it's going in the Trump direction. So I'm hopeful that we could have some understanding of where it's all going. I don't think that this country can really sustain what happened last time around again. And that is my biggest hope, but I'm nervous. I think every Democrat is, we're wired this way.

this time around, it's about these coalitions, right? These different groups and coalitions that each campaign builds. What should the Harris campaign be most worried about right now? Or does worrying sort of not matter two weeks out? People are already voting and what's done is done. Like, can you change anything at this stage? I think

I think that you can. I feel like you should always be campaigning like you could still make a difference. And you look at these margins of, you know, what was it like 20,000 Arizona, 12,000 ish in Georgia, 20,000, 21,000 in Wisconsin. I mean, that's tiny when you think of general population. So you should never take your foot off the gas. And something that I was paying a lot of attention to was embedded in the Emerson poll, which showed that

late breakers. So people who have decided anywhere between the last week to the last month are going for Harris for a ratio of 60 to 36. So Trump was winning by 15 or 16 points, I think, on people who decided greater than a month ago. So the ones who were really set in. But that number of people that are making a late decision and in her favor shows that these things that she's doing are making an impact, like showing up with Brett Baier.

having the kind of town halls that she is doing, having events with Liz Cheney, having events with Lizzo and Magic Johnson. I mean, these are all things that are going on right here at the end. I don't know if you saw that she's going to Texas, which I found fascinating. She's having a rally in Houston with Colin Allred, who...

you know, seems within striking distance of Ted Cruz. But I feel like this happens every cycle. And we're like, yeah, Texas is turning blue. And then it's like, you idiots, you just spend, you know, $100 million on nothing or whatever it costs. But it is an interesting choice because during the Obama campaigns, David Plouffe was very open about the fact that they don't go places they don't see a path.

Tell me briefly, Jess, you know, NBC's reporting that per a campaign official, there's real worry about a blue wall state slipping. And you've already referenced it. But like one of the groups we've heard that she's not as strong with is black men. But what's your vibe on those two worries?

Yeah, well, the having greater confidence about Wisconsin than Michigan is something that I've heard from people in the campaign for a long time. That doesn't surprise me. I mean, it can't be like if it's one or two percentage points of black men that trend towards Trump. That's OK. We can still win like that. And I think the expectation is that that will be the case.

The worry is that it's a lot more than that, that you're getting into the kind of 7%, 8% change. But it's definitely a concern. And like you said, they're directing the campaign straight at that. You know, releasing an agenda for Black men is an obvious sign that that's somewhere that they're weak.

In contrast, though, it's interesting to look at the surge that they're getting with college educated people in general, but especially with moderate white women, kind of like the Liz Cheney cohort. And she seems to be leaning into cultivating that group as much as she's leaning into trying to keep black men in the fold. But if you are playing a game of who is actually going to show up to vote,

Liz Cheney is definitely showing up to vote. Are some of these young black men that are in these focus groups definitely voting? I don't know. Are the ones who listen to Joe Rogan and Andrew Schultz's podcast definitely voting? Right. They haven't historically. And I think we're Democrats feel like they have an advantage that like if our entire base is

Turns out we're in much better position because we know that these are all high propensity voters and the Republicans can't say the same. That might be a problem for eight years from now when those younger white or black men turn into slightly older white or black men. Yeah, totally. And just become, you know, more dug into the process, more reliable, you know, more apt to be married and have kids and be thinking about life a bit differently. Yeah.

Now, some new polling out this week from The Washington Post may have given Democrats a bit of hope in some places less than others, with her ahead by four in Georgia, three in Wisconsin, two in Michigan and two in Pennsylvania. As the polling averages ahead of this survey had given an edge to the former president. All the polls themselves do indicate that the race is not just close, but exceptionally close. Guy Benson is the host of The Guy Benson Show on Fox Radio. Right. In the Real Clear Politics Average podcast.

You can point to Trump's leads in most of these battleground states, but they're a fraction of a percentage point in a number of the cases. And that is not just within the margin of error. It's basically really a tie if you think about it. So if the polling is more accurate than it has been when Trump has been on the ballot before in 2016 and 2020, we could have a very long night ahead on November 5th. It could be a real nail biter to the very end.

Or we could have a bit of a polling error and maybe not such a close election. Right. So it's unknowable until we actually get the data.

Yeah. So not to make you a pollster suddenly, but so our Fox News power rankings came out. Right. And they say two recent polls show a uniquely tight race. So results like this should mean it's Trump's race to lose. But the rankings go on to point out that he's up nationally in some polls, which we had not seen before. And she's up within the margin of error, but still up in battlegrounds. When we were always talking before in 2016 and 2020 about the underrepresented race.

Trump support in the polls. Does it remain to be seen if that's still the case, that he's underrepresented? Or do you look at those national polls and go, well, that's confusing? So we don't know yet. And I understand it is completely logical to go back and look at 16, look at 20 and conclude that it was absolutely true. Those two cycles, Trump overperformed his polling projections and expectations those years.

And so to say it is very plausible that he might do that again, I get it. I think you might even call it probable. But it's not definite, right? Maybe the pollsters have adjusted. Maybe things have changed in the country. Maybe people aren't as shy about admitting that they're Trump supporters now, so the polls might be closer to accurate, right? You can't just assume that the effect that we saw the last two presidential cycles will be replicated again. But if you had to have me bet, right,

If you told me tomorrow there will be a polling error, which direction will it go? My bet would be the same direction that it went the last two times. You see former President Trump going to speak to Christian voters a little bit this week. And you see former Wyoming Congresswoman Liz Cheney saying, hey, Republicans who don't like Trump, you can vote for Harris and not tell anyone.

What do you make of those two things, this outreach to religious voters and this outreach on the Harris campaign side for disaffected Republicans? As someone who is not a terribly pro-Trump right leaning person, the Liz Cheney pitch falls completely flat with me.

I understand what they're trying to do here. I do find it interesting that here in Kamala Harris, you have a sitting vice president, an incumbent who just recently said she cannot think of a single thing she would do differently than the unpopular incumbent president over the last four years. She would not change a thing.

And yet she doesn't want to be seen with him anywhere at all. But she is campaigning with this former Republican congresswoman to try to pick off some of these, as you call them, disaffected Republicans. Brit Hume was on my radio show recently, and Brit said that does not strike him as the move of a campaign that is terribly confident in where they stand. But it's a fight at the margins, potentially. And maybe that's what the Harris campaign is focusing on. I'm just not sure exactly.

if it's the strongest closing message across the board, but they're trying. Finally, does Trump need to do or say anything in your mind over the next two weeks, or does he need to visit the opposite? Does he need to say less? You know, these rallies are getting longer. And I wonder how the former president, you know, calling he called it the far left is the enemy within. I wonder what kinds of you know, how that affects those undecided voters who remain if there really are any.

Time will tell what the actual dynamics are within the electorate, but the body language, so to speak, of these two campaigns look different. The Trump campaign, they look like a confident group that believes they are poised to win.

The Harris campaign has made a ton of massive jarring changes in the last few weeks to their strategy, including media strategy and all of that. They seem to be throwing a lot of things against the wall that usually does not augur well for that candidate. When you see this type of behavior in the homestretch of a campaign, maybe they're just freaking out for no reason. Maybe they have that ground game advantage. Maybe they will win. But at the moment, Trump, I think,

senses that he's ahead. I think the campaign is certainly acting like they are ahead. And I think Trump trying to close out on a positive message. I think the McDonald's thing actually worked very well for him. That would be my counsel over these final two weeks, if in fact they are confident that they are maybe not in the driver's seat, but slightly favored. That's my sense of it. Guy Vinson, thanks for joining. You bet.

And in other news... I'm Gianna Gelosi. If you ordered up item number 40 from a pizza place in Germany, your pie came with a side of cocaine. Local investigators say it was one of the best-selling pizzas. German police busted the pizza shop in the western city of Dusseldorf, saying they were tipped off by suspicious food inspectors back in March...

And when drug squad officers focused in on the restaurant, they figured out why pizza number 40 was so popular. When police buzzed the apartment of the pizzeria manager, the 36-year-old allegedly threw a bag of drugs out the window, but those drugs fell right into the arms of police officers. Police say the restaurant manager, who was released from detention after a few days, soon reopened his business and started selling pizza number 40 with the cocaine side order once again.

That gave investigators an opportunity to look into the supply chain. And after several weeks, some 150 officers busted an entire drug ring in Western Germany, arresting three suspects and coming across two cannabis plantations. But police did not say how much the pizzeria charged for the special order. For the Fox News Rundown, I'm Gianna Gelosi.

I'm Dana Perino. Join me for my podcast, Perino on Politics. As we analyze the 2024 election cycle, make sure you subscribe to this series on FoxNewsPodcast.com or wherever you download podcasts and leave me a rating and review. Subscribe to this podcast at FoxNewsPodcast.com. It's time for your Fox News commentary. Tommy Lahren.

What's on your mind? While national and swing state polls remain tight, Donald Trump has pulled ahead in the betting market. Data from PolyMarket suggests Trump is now leading in all key states. He recently claimed the swing state of Nevada 51% to 49% over Kamala. This latest data also represents the first time Trump has edged her out in all key states since VP Harris became the Democrat nominee. And while

the betting markets are just one prediction metric, I'd say they are fairly reliable and an indicator of public and voter sentiment. It's also worth noting that Trump's numbers have become more favorable right around the time the Kamala campaign decided to ditch the basement strategy and start the media blitz.

The more people see and hear from Kamala, the less they like her and the more they move in Trump's direction. There is no doubt this will be a close election, but if Kamala continues her media tour, things might just get better and better for her opponent. I'm Tomi Lahren and you can watch my show, Tomi Lahren is Fearless, at Outkick.com. Outkick.com

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