Great news from North Carolina:

It is through voters like Ms. McCoy, who moved to North Carolina eight years ago, that Mr. Obama has achieved a milestone: He is now running neck and neck with his Republican rival, Senator John McCain, in the state, and is even slightly ahead in some polls.

This once-red state is now a raging battleground, along with a few others where Mr. Obama has sought to expand his electoral map.

“For a Republican to be tied at this point in the election in North Carolina is unfathomable,” said Hunter Bacot, a political scientist at Elon University, which Gov. Sarah Palin, Mr. McCain’s running mate, visited last week.

No Democratic presidential candidate has won North Carolina since Jimmy Carter did so in 1976. The state has long been a bastion of cultural conservatism; it was in Greensboro last week that Ms. Palin said she loved visiting the “pro-America” parts of the country.

But this is a new landscape, even from four years ago, when President Bush defeated Senator John Kerry (and his running mate, John Edwards, of North Carolina) by 12 percentage points in the state.

The turnabout can be traced to an influx of new voters and a change in demographics; a slowing of the state’s economy and the collapse of the nation’s financial system; Mr. Obama’s extensive ground organization, huge financial advantage and amount spent on television (seven to one over Mr. McCain); the state’s large population of blacks and students; and Mr. McCain’s neglect of the state.

The relative position of the candidates was evident in their visits to the state last weekend.

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October 21, 2008

Stateside

In Bush Stronghold, Obama Pulls Even With McCain

By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE

www.nytimes.com/2008/10/21/us/politics/21carolina.html

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Lorie McCoy, 40, a flight attendant, was bustling out of a library here the other day, loaded down with books. She is worried about how an upended economy might affect the airline industry, and so she is also taking classes.

“I’m looking for a better, higher-paying job,” Ms. McCoy said. For that reason, she said, she is voting for Senator Barack Obama.

“He is speaking to a lot of people’s issues,” she said. “With all these factory closings, he’s speaking to the middle class.”

It is through voters like Ms. McCoy, who moved to North Carolina eight years ago, that Mr. Obama has achieved a milestone: He is now running neck and neck with his Republican rival, Senator John McCain, in the state, and is even slightly ahead in some polls.