Election season 2008 in North Carolina has been marked by a series of unexpected twists and turns.
From the financial meltdown on Wall Street taking center stage on the candidates' platforms to Republican Sen. John McCain's surprise pick of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate, little about this year's election cycle has been predictable.
But perhaps the biggest surprise for N.C. voters has been how this once solidly red state has transformed into a major player in the presidential contest.
North Carolina helped Sen. Barack Obama to clinch the Democratic nomination in the May 6 primary, in which he defeated his opponent Sen. Hillary Clinton 56 to 41 percent. In Durham, the victory was even more pronounced, with Obama commanding 74 percent of the vote to Clinton's 23 percent.
Yet some doubted the state's ultimate significance on Election Day.
"We're sort of like a team on the bubble to get into the NCAA [Tournament]," Democratic strategist Gary Pearce told The Chronicle in July. "We're not a first-tier battleground state."
With three weeks to go until the election, however, pollsters and pundits have pinpointed the state as one of six up for grabs come Nov. 4.
"It's a must-win for the McCain campaign. Republicans in today's politics look to the South as an essential base of their national coalition," Ferrel Guillory, director of the Program on Public Life at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill told The Chronicle Aug. 27.
But the latest Public Policy Polling poll conducted Oct. 11 through Oct. 12 showed Obama with a slight advantage over his opponent 49 percent to 46 percent in North Carolina.
"This is going to be a competitive election cycle. We were under no illusions going into it that it wasn't," N.C. GOP spokesperson Brent Woodcox told The Chronicle in late August.
Both candidates are now showering the state with attention, appearing at numerous rallies that attract thousands of enthused supporters. Both have also opened dozens of offices throughout the state, bombarded the airwaves with television advertisements and deployed thousands of volunteers to go door-to-door to relay their candidate's message.
The result has been an almost electric atmosphere surrounding this year's contests and a record number of newly registered voters.
"Huge, huge and huger," Mike Ashe, director of the Durham County Board of Elections, said of the increase in interest. "We've registered thousands and thousands of new voters and we are the busiest we have ever been."
Many Duke students, most first-time voters, have also decided to get in on the action.
Freshman Arthur Leopold was in Denver, Colorado to watch Barack Obama deliver his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention as a New York delegate and the youngest member of Obama's finance committee. The following week, junior Chris Bobadilla was on the floor of the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn. as part of the delegation from Oregon.
A number of contested races have also heated up local politics in North Carolina. Libertarian candidate Michael Munger, professor and chair of the political science department, is making a historic third-party bid for the governor's seat against Republican Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory and Democratic Lt. Gov. Bev Perdue, while another professor of political science, David Price, hopes to keep his seat as representative for the 4th District in Congress.
On campus, both Duke Democrats and College Republicans have made efforts to raise political awareness and register new voters.
In addition, for the first time in a presidential election, students will be able to cast their ballots on campus at the early voting site in the Old Trinity Room in the West Union Oct. 16 through Nov. 1.
"Youth votes are huge, not only at Duke, but nationwide," Gunther Peck, associate professor of history and public policy studies, told the Chronicle Sept. 22. "It could decide the election."
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