The John Locke Foundation held an election preview discussion panel discussion in Raleigh earlier this week. Among those featured was Bryon York, chief political correspondent for The Washington Examiner. Armed with some additional on-the-ground knowledge, York writes today on the presidential race here in North Carolina, arguing that holding the DNC in Charlotte did not held President Obama in the state:
“We’re going to play big,” top Obama adviser David Axelrod said when the choice was announced. “We’re certainly not going to hunker down.”
But it’s not working out. Of all the swing states playing key roles in the 2012 presidential race, North Carolina is the only one in which Obama is trailing Republican Mitt Romney. According to the RealClearPolitics average of polls, Romney leads Obama by 4.8 percentage points in North Carolina — and the convention had little or no effect on that margin.
