US election: Donald Trump expected to win North Carolina

The former president appears to have clung onto a hotly contested state that Democrats worked hard to pick up.

Donald Trump is projected to have won the state of North Carolina, netting him 16 Electoral College votes and dealing a blow to Kamala Harris’ hopes of adding a state to the Democrats’ column after Joe Biden’s 2020 victory.

While the state is also projected to have elected a new Democratic governor, the Trump campaign targeted it heavily in the last few weeks of the presidential race, and the effort appears to have paid off.

The Republican gubernatorial candidate, Mark Robinson, was also heavily damaged by revelations of racist and sexist remarks he had made online, including posts in which he described himself as a “black nazi”. The Trump campaign quietly disassociated itself from him after the statements became public.

North Carolina has not voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since Barack Obama won it in 2008, despite several cycles of concerted efforts to recapture it and various successes in downballot races.