Rural voters lean red, young voters lean blue. So what's a young, rural voter to do?
Young and rural voters are two voting blocs that can help swing elections in battleground states. And both these groups are on the radar of Democrats and Republicans in North Carolina ahead of the 2024 election.
President Biden's campaign is already investing in the state, three years after he lost it by just under 75,000 votes. Local and national Democrats are also unveiling plans for swinging voters back over.
"My own people are the ones that I've got to figure out a way to motivate and mobilize and get energized around building this thing up from the bottom," said Anderson Clayton, who is the new chairwoman of the state's Democratic Party and the youngest party chair in the nation at 25.
"I want to go out there and fight for everybody — and young people especially," she said.
Clayton, who is from Roxboro, N.C., about an hour northwest of Raleigh, is honest about the party's flaws in her state. Following a handful of federal and state losses in the 2022 midterms, she acknowledged Democrats dropped the ball when connecting with young voters, as well as rural and Black voters — three key parts of the state's voting base.
As a young and rural voter, Clayton hopes she can help repair some of these relationships. Republicans, though, are not giving up the
