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I don't go to Charlotte Checkers games. So I’ve started associating Bojangles Coliseum with Donald Trump.
I covered his rally there in 2018.
And another one on the eve of the pandemic in 2020. That’s when he brushed aside COVID-19, saying it would quickly go away.
And then in July 2024, when he held his first campaign event after Democrats swapped out Joe Biden for Kamala Harris. She was, he said, a “radical left lunatic.”
When I drive by the old concrete dome, I see a sea of red hats, marching across the bridge over Independence Boulevard.
So Kamala Harris’ rally there last Thursday was a bit of a Bizzaro World.
Many more women than men. Equal numbers of Black and white supporters among the 7,500 attendees. Beyonce’s “Freedom” instead of Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer.”
For people like Emily Parker, of Gastonia, it’s been a long time coming.
“I have to go,” she said. “It’s history. Herstory. So why would I miss out? I took PTO, a day off work. To see the amazing Kamala. So we’re going to win, in North Carolina.”
Joan Dore saw Hillary Clinton at a 2016 rally in Charlotte. She thinks Harris will energize Democrats more than Clinton did eight years ago.
“Everyone was so excited in the line waiting to get in,” Dore said. “Everyone is cheering and clapping and saying hello to each other. We all have our shirts on. We aren’t going back.”
Charlotte Democrats haven’t had a communal experience like this in the Trump era.
The 2022 U.S. Senate race was never going to attract massive crowds like a presidential contest, but it also never captured people’s imagination – even though Cheri Beasley was the first Black woman to run for U.S. Senate in North Carolina.
The party played it safe during the pandemic and didn’t hold any rallies in 2020.
Going back farther, there was certainly buzz in 2016 for Hillary Clinton’s glass-ceiling campaign. She didn’t hold any events this large in Charlotte, though she did blitz the state repeatedly and hold at least one arena-sized rally in Winston-Salem.
The DNC in 2012 in Charlotte was a huge party, but it was for Democratic insiders only. Barack Obama was supposed to give a speech at Bank of America Stadium for the blue masses, like Emily Parker, but it was canceled because of weather. The Obama campaign said he would come back and give a make-up speech, but he never did. (The campaign decided to spend its time and money on Ohio instead.)
You have to go back to November 3, 2008, to find anything like September 12, 2024, in Charlotte. That’s when Obama spoke to a massive crowd in the rain at UNC Charlotte on the eve of the election.
Here’s how Slate described that rally:
CHARLOTTE, N.C.— Politicians often start their speeches addressing the big development of the day. When Barack Obama took the rain-soaked stage here, the new material at the beginning was the sad news that his grandmother had died. “She has gone home,” he said, his voice halting. “It’s hard, a little, to talk about.”
At the Harris rally Thursday, there was a lot of emotion as well. The crowd erupted when she took the stage. I saw one woman who appeared to be in tears.
The vice president mined Tuesday’s debate for material in her 25-minute speech.
“Two nights ago, Donald Trump and I had our first debate,” she said while the crowd cheered. “And I believe we owe it to the voters to have another debate.”
(Trump said he won’t debate her again.)
She mocked Trump for saying he was going to replace the Affordable Care Act with a “concept of a plan.”
“You heard what he said in the debate,” she said. “He has no plan to replace it.”
She then emphasized the word “concept” while laughing.
Harris noted that Trump declined to say whether he would sign or veto a national bill to limit abortion, should Congress pass one.
“You remember that, he refused to answer that question – he refused to answer,” she said.
Harris then flew to Greensboro, where she held an even bigger rally at the Coliseum there, before 17,000 people.
It’s easy to think about 2008 watching all of this.
That’s when Obama narrowly won the state by 0.3 percentage points, or 14,000 votes. He was the last Democrat to do it.
The Biden campaign, now reborn as the Harris campaign, has invested heavily in North Carolina. The Mecklenburg Democratic Party has had a fundraising surge, much of it from out-of-state donors who want to flip the state.
The county party had planned one of its largest canvasses ever this past weekend. It’s adding new registered voters faster than the state overall.
But 2016 can also be top of mind.
Charlotte didn’t see anything like the rally at Bojangles Coliseum that year, but the state did. Here’s how Politico described the fight for North Carolina on the eve of the election:
RALEIGH, N.C. — Tim Kaine stumped in Wilmington. Donald Trump pressed his case at a boisterous rally here in the state capital. Seventy miles to the west, former President Bill Clinton headlined an event in Greensboro. And all that took place before the planned midnight blowout rally for Hillary Clinton, featuring the nominee herself and A-list guests like Lady Gaga and Jon Bon Jovi.
On a frenzied election eve, North Carolina voters felt the full brunt of its role as a presidential fulcrum, a state recognized by both campaigns as essential to Trump’s path to the White House.
“If Secretary Clinton wins North Carolina, there really is no path for Donald Trump to win the presidency,” said Scott Falmlen, the former executive director of the North Carolina Democratic Party, explaining the aggressive Clinton push here. “People throw around the word ‘firewall.’ This time, this truly is a firewall, to prevent him from winning.”
Trump ended up winning North Carolina by 3.7 percentage points, or 173,000 votes.
Polls in North Carolina show the race is now essentially tied.
Will this finally be the Democrats’ year?
