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Donald Trump wins battleground state of North Carolina

In this Thursday, Nov. 5, 2020, file photo, President Donald Trump speaks at the White House, in Washington. Although only a few of America's CEOs have made public statements about President Trump's refusal to accept his election loss, many are worried about it in private. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)
In this Thursday, Nov. 5, 2020, file photo, President Donald Trump speaks at the White House, in Washington. Although only a few of America's CEOs have made public statements about President Trump's refusal to accept his election loss, many are worried about it in private. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)

By Associated Press 3 min read

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) – President Donald Trump has won the presidential battleground state of North Carolina over Democratic nominee Joe Biden.

Trump campaigned aggressively in North Carolina with in-person rallies at the height of the coronavirus pandemic, including gatherings in Fayetteville, Winston-Salem and Greenville. Biden had largely kept off the physical campaign trail and did not personally visit the state in the last 16 days of the election.

Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper fared much better than Biden, winning his race against Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Forest on election night Nov. 3 by more than 4 percentage points.

Biden’s campaign hoped the counting of as many as 116,000 mail-in absentee ballots in subsequent days would overwhelmingly swing in his favor, but he fell short of surpassing Trump. A large share of counties had finished tallying their outstanding ballots on Thursday and Friday. The State Board of Elections will certify the results by Nov. 24.

By Friday afternoon, there were not enough outstanding ballots remaining to be counted that would allow Biden to overtake Trump’s lead of 73,697 votes, or 1.3 percentage points.