As if Kamala Harris hasn't already had bad news this week, here comes Politico with another reason to panic. 

Democrats have made no mystery about their intent to flip North Carolina in this cycle, and the state appears reasonably close. Donald Trump has a one-point edge in the RCP aggregation, in the one battleground state that pollsters got right in the previous two election cycles. Team Kamala moved some ad money out of NC this week but Democrats have party money coming in at the same time.

However, it doesn't appear to be working. Party officials are sending up warnings that black voters aren't turning out in the early vote at levels they need to compete ... and numbers may not be their only problem:

Early vote numbers in North Carolina show the electorate skewing older and whiter, compared to the state’s voter registration, a red flag for Democrats who need Black voters to turn out in heavy numbers if Kamala Harris is going to flip this state.

As of Wednesday, Black voters make up 18 percent of the electorate in early voting, and some Democratic operatives said they must bump that up to about 20 percent for Harris to be competitive statewide. In 2020, Black voters were 19 percent of the electorate, when Donald Trump narrowly won the state. And Democrats acknowledge that without a swing in their favor in the last days of early voting or on Election Day, it may not be good enough.

About 36,000 more African Americans had voted in-person by this point in 2020 than in 2024, and “that gap has to be closed among African Americans for Democrats to win,” said Thomas Mills, a Democratic strategist in the state.

That's not the only gap in play either, but let's start with that. As of a couple of days ago, NC had collected well over 3.3 million early voting, nearly all in-person voting, well ahead of the pace from four years ago. The partisan split is even between Democrats, Republicans, and independents, which means that the traditional Democrat advantage in early voting hasn't materialized yet. And that goes beyond just that traditional EV edge, too. Don't forget that Hurricane Helene did tremendous damage to western NC, where the GOP vote is most concentrated. If the GOP is keeping up, that speaks to both the skill of the state's election officials and voter enthusiasm.

A fall-off in EVs among black voters is therefore worrisome. But the raw numbers may understate the issue, too. Four years ago, Trump only got 7% of the black vote, while Biden got 92%. This year, however, polls show Trump improving in this demo. The latest Survey USA survey showing a tie between Harris and Trump also shows Trump getting 13% of the black vote, and Harris only getting 82%. The latest Atlas Intel survey shows Harris up one in a two-person race and even on the full ballot. This poll shows Trump getting 15.3% of the black vote, with Harris getting 84.7%. 

Readers can do the math in a general sense, anyway. Harris still dominates in this demo, but she's lost ground that Joe Biden won four years ago. The problem facing Democrats is not just that they're short 36,000 votes so far, but the votes they do have likely favor Trump significantly more than it did four years ago. If the Trump voters in this demo are more enthusiastic than Harris' voters, that effect could amplify the eventual gap.

All of this makes it harder to catch up -- not impossible, of course, but harder. Democrats will have to find new ways to stoke voter enthusiasm among black voters for Harris. Presumably, that was the intent of the "closing argument," delivered in DC rather than in a battleground state, but that got bigfooted by Joe Biden calling half of the electorate "garbage." Meanwhile, Trump is campaigning in battlegrounds while riding in a garbage truck and paying tribute to working-class people while Harris tries to distance herself from the president who actually got their votes the last time around. 

Nevertheless, the polling in this state suggests a dead heat. Team Kamala has five days to close the gap. And Trump has the same amount of time to see how far he can leverage his gains in the black vote to keep the state's 16 Electoral College votes in his column.