These are the 4 counties to watch in close North Carolina race for presiden
Jackson, Hyde, Caswell — if the names of these rural counties don’t ring a bell, perhaps their claims to Tar Heel fame will.
Jackson County is home to Western Carolina University.
Hyde County includes Ocracoke Island.
And Caswell County is where, in 1839, a slave named Stephen made agricultural history by discovering the “flue-cured” process that produced bright leaf tobacco — North Carolina’s signature crop for generations.
With polls suggesting a tight race in North Carolina between President Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden, his Democratic challenger, it’s worth taking a closer look at these three counties.
And a fourth one: Robeson County. It’s a national bellwether. In the three presidential elections since 2008, it has picked the candidate who ended up winning the White House — Obama, Obama, and Trump.
In 2016, Trump beat Democrat Hillary Clinton in North Carolina by 3.6 percentage points — 49.8 percent to 46.2 percent. His victory margins were in the double digits in Jackson, Hyde and Caswell. The results in Robeson (50.8 percent to 46.5 percent) mirrored the statewide difference.
But that was 2016. Local political experts and party veterans in each of the four bellwether counties told the Observer that, this year, they expect a close race within their borders.
https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/politics-government/election/article246639413.html#storylink=cpy