Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump will hold a rally in the battleground state of North Carolina this afternoon.
Trump will speak from the McGlohon Theatre at Spirit Square beginning at 4:00 p.m. Eastern Time. His rally can be viewed live in the embedded YouTube player via Right Side Broadcasting.
The Republican nominee for president has been spending a significant amount of time in North Carolina over the past month, as this is one of several states Trump essentially must win in order to reach 270 electoral votes. Trump’s current path involves winning Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, Iowa, Nevada, plus maintaining Arizona and picking up Pennsylvania or Virginia. If he loses just a single one of those, he will likely fall short of victory.
In North Carolina, Hillary Clinton is currently ahead in the polls, although the race is still neck-and-neck. In Real Clear Politics polling average, Clinton is ahead of Trump by 2.2 percent, meaning it the state is certainly still within Trump’s grasp. Although Barack Obama won North Carolina in 2008, Mitt Romney was able to turn it red again in 2012. However, Mecklenburg County, where Charlotte is located, voted for Barack Obama by a margin of over 20 percentage points.
However, Trump does not think his supporters should take much stock in any of these polls, recently telling those at his rally that he’s winning by a lot and that the polls are being rigged by Democrats who want to get Hillary Clinton elected.
Directly after his rally in Charlotte, Trump heads over to a second event in Kinston, which begins at 7:00 p.m.