In late-stage campaigning ahead of the Super Tuesday primaries, Donald Trump visited Greensboro this past weekend to stir up his supporters and to endorse North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, one of the GOP candidates seeking to represent his party in the race for governor.
Former South Carolina Gov. — and former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. — Nikki Haley stumped in Charlotte, carrying on her longshot quest to beat Trump in the Republican presidential primary. And Vice Pres. Kamala Harris stopped in Durham on Friday, to stump for Pres. Joe Biden.
In the Democratic primary for State Attorney General, Congressman Jeff Jackson must hold off Durham District Attorney Santana Deberry and Tim Dunn. While on the Republican side, Congressman Dan Bishop is unopposed.
There is a three-way race among Democrats vying for lieutenant governor and 11 candidates listed in the GOP primary for that office.
State elections officials are urging voters to turn out for primary Election Day, but to be patient as they await results because a law passed by the Republican-led North Carolina General Assembly changed the timing for processing early votes.
In the past, elections boards could tabulate mail-in and early ballots ahead of Election Day. Then, as soon as Election Day polls closed at 7:30 p.m., those stored results could get released. Now, under the new law, early votes cannot be run through tabulators until after polls close on Election Day.
State Elections Director Karen Brinson Bell told reporters that means a later start to a multi-step process.
"To tabulate and close down those machines, to export the results and upload those into our system," she explained.
A second primary — also called a runoff — could be held in May for any races where a top candidate fails to garner more than 30% of the vote.
Around 690,000 voters have already cast mail-in and in-person ballots during the 17-day early voting period, according to state elections officials.
That is around 80,000 short of the early voting turnout for the 2020 primaries.
Now that primary Election Day is here, Bell warned voters it is too late to put an absentee ballot in the mail because of a new deadline for delivering absentee ballots by the close of polls at 7:30 p.m. on Election Day.
"You can instead drop it off at your county Board of Elections office," she said. Or, she added, voters who requested an absentee ballot but have not yet filled it out may discard it and vote in person at the polls.
