BREAKING: Donald Trump Wins North Carolina, Decision Desk Projects

Former President Donald Trump has won the presidential race in North Carolina, according to a projection from Decision Desk HQ, and will carry all of the state’s 16 electoral votes.

The dominant storyline going into Election Day was the bombshell Des Moines Register poll showing Vice President Kamala Harris ahead of Trump in Iowa, a state he won twice in overwhelming fashion.

While a much closer race than Iowa, North Carolina is also a state that has gone Republican for most of recent history. Only one Democratic presidential candidate — former President Barack Obama — has won the state in over four decades. But razor-thin margins and a Democratic governor in Roy Cooper — a VP short-lister before the selection of Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) — have turned North Carolina into a battleground state. But it’s a battleground that Trump won twice.

For that reason, both Trump and VP Harris spent precious hours rallying in the state in the closing days of the campaign. Harris and Trump campaigned there over the weekend, and Trump was in Raleigh on Monday. Both candidates also campaigned heavily in Pennsylvania — which is seen as a must-win for both Harris and Trump — in the closing days.

Trump also pushed hard to capitalize on the damage from devastating hurricanes by spreading misleading information and outright lies about the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and other Biden administration responses.

Polls in the state were consistently close and the two were within about a point of each other in the 538 average going into Election Day, but the final New York Times/Sienna poll showed Harris ahead by four points.