'Our target audience is every North Carolinian': Harris makes 2 NC stops in final pitch before Election Day
GOLDSBORO, N.C. (WTVD) -- The stakes are so high yet the number of voters left to sway in North Carolina is so low.
Welcome to the final 36 hours before Election Day.
"Our target audience is all the people who have everything at stake for the outcome of this election and for North Carolina there's a lot at stake," Sen. Kamala Harris, D-California, the Democratic nominee for Vice President, told ABC11 in a one-on-one interview. "We're looking at one in nine North Carolinian families who have hunger in their household. We're looking at one in six NC families having a difficult time paying the rent, one in six businesses in this state going out of business."
Harris and her running mate, former Vice President Joe Biden, are trying to become the first Democrats to win North Carolina in a presidential election since 2008.
"They want a president who speaks truth, who keeps their word, and who speaks with the values we as Americans care about, including the value of unifying the country and treating all the people with dignity," Harris said of the growing North Carolina electorate. "Joe is saying let's get control of (COVID-19) and resume what we all want, which is some sense of normalcy. We're not going to get there by denying the fact of this virus. We're going to get there by attacking it."
WATCH: Harris' full interview with ABC11
Harris' visits Sunday to Goldsboro and Fayetteville come after 17 days of early voting where approximately 4.5 million North Carolinians have already cast ballots. Simultaneously, the state has also reported more than 2,800 COVID-19 positive cases for six consecutive days -- a record.
"The Biden-Harris administration has a plan, and we would implement that plan on Day 1," Harris said, a plan posted on JoeBiden.com that notably does not mention a second lockdown. "It is a national plan for free testing, a national plan for free vaccines when God willing ,we get a good one. It is about helping businesses reopen and getting kids back in school with all protections and safeguards in place. These are the things we are prepared to do."
Regardless of the specifics of that plan, a Biden-Harris administration would have a unique challenge of winning the trust of at least 40% of the nation that's expected to vote against them, including many Americans who continue to question the threat of COVID-19 and the science surrounding the pandemic.
"It is my pledge and my absolute deep commitment that when and if we win, we will be an administration for all Americans regardless of whether you voted for someone else or didn't vote at all," Harris said. "That is what real leadership is about. Frankly COVID doesn't care if you're a registered Republican or Democrat. COVID doesn't care about whether you live and have one ideological perspective or another. It's hitting everybody. We plan on dealing with it in a way that we pick people up and lift people up."
