(Bloomberg) -- Republican Senator Thom Tillis predicted former President Donald Trump will win the storm-ravaged state of North Carolina in his White House bid, despite polls showing the race to be increasingly close there.
“I think President Trump wins by a margin about what he won in 2020,” Tillis told Bloomberg Television on Wednesday. Trump won the state by a 1 percentage-point margin in 2020.
Since Vice President Kamala Harris entered the presidential race in July, polls have suggested she is doing better in the once-reliably Republican state than President Joe Biden had been, possibly opening another path for her to win the White House. Both candidates have been campaigning there frequently.
The state’s senior senator said early voting was strong despite Hurricane Helene delaying the start, praising efforts to expand voting locations in areas hit hard by the storm. He also commended the response to last month’s storm, which dumped historic amounts of rain deep inland, sparking unprecedented flooding.
The senator also called for bipartisanship in Washington. He said that if Republicans take the White House and both the House and Senate, they will extend the 2017 tax cuts without Democratic votes. But to pass legislation with “enduring quality” requires working with both parties, he said.
While Tillis thinks Trump will win his state, he expressed doubt that his party’s scandal-plagued gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson could do the same.
--With assistance from Annmarie Hordern, Jonathan Ferro and Lisa Abramowicz.
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