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With another nearly 225,000 votes cast on November 1, North Carolina total absentee ballots have reached nearly 2.2 million, with nearly 2 million of those coming by in-person absentee ballots. Due to a busy work day, here's an abbreviated version of the post; more analysis to come later this afternoon.

The Trump campaign appears to be riding high and operating optimistically headed into the final week of the presidential campaign. The clearest sign of that comes in the form of a $25 million ad buy that includes new spots in Pennsylvania, Michigan and New Mexico, all of which are classified as leaning Democratic in the current ABC News state ratings. The only of those three states that has recent reputable polling is Pennsylvania, the latest of which has Clinton leading by six points in the Oct. 16 Quinnipiac survey. Michigan hasn't voted Republican since 1988 and New Mexico has only...

A new WRAL/SurveyUSA poll shows that Donald Trump is now leading North Carolina by seven points ahead of Hillary Clinton — 51 percent to Clinton’s 44 percent. That means that Trump has shockingly flipped his numbers in the state in just one month. Three weeks ago, Clinton was leading Trump by two points in the same poll – 46 percent to 44 percent. Trump has now passed the 50 percent threshold, according to the poll, making it unlikely that Clinton will be able to bounce back. The poll was conducted after the news that the FBI would revisit the investigation...

Should we succumb to the temptation to freak out about an individual poll, which data nerds tell us we must never do? Or should we calmly remind ourselves that the polling average is usually a more reliable indicator of the state of the race than any one survey is? C’mon, it’s the final week. We’re entitled to a little freaking out. SurveyUSA has it Trump 51, Clinton 44: Almost a third of respondents in the WRAL News poll ranked trustworthiness as the most important consideration in voting for president. Positions on issues were rated most important by 40 percent, while...

James O'Keefe ‏@JamesOKeefeIII 20m Tomorrow @PVeritas_Action and @POTUS will be in NC. One of us will be releasing hidden camera footage of a Dem racist statement. Stay tuned.

RALEIGH, N.C. — With a week to go until Election Day, Republican Donald Trump has seized control of a tight presidential race in North Carolina, according to an exclusive WRAL News poll released Tuesday. SurveyUSA polled 659 people statewide Friday through Monday who have already cast their ballots or are likely to vote in the election and found Trump with a 51 to 44 percent lead over Democratic rival Hillary Clinton. The poll has a margin of error of +/- 3.9 percentage points. Read more at http://www.wral.com/wral-poll-trump-charges-ahead-in-nc/16183780/#OZvxZCIjSMi5d3sh.99

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is nibbling away at Hillary Clinton’s lead in North Carolina, according to a new poll. The race between Clinton and Trump is now too close to call in Elon University’s latest survey of North Carolina. The Democratic nominee leads Trump 42 percent to 41.2 percent, well within the poll’s margin of error of 3.7 percentage points. In last month's version of the poll, Clinton led Trump by nearly 6 points. This latest survey of 710 likely voters was conducted before FBI Director James Comey announced on Friday that the bureau is reviewing a newly discovered...

Democratic candidate Tim Benton cold-cocked Republican Brenden Jones at the annual Beast Fest in North Carolina. . . . “Mr. Benton kept nudging him with his shoulder the whole time they were walking across, and then he just stepped back and little and coldcocked him,” he said. “To beat all, he (Benton) left a little child in a stroller to walk across the street, and if Mr. Jones’ (companion) hadn’t caught her, the child would have rolled into the street,” Hester added.

With over 216,000 absentee ballots added on Halloween, North Carolina's absentee ballot pool is getting closer to two million ballots, with 95 percent of those having been accepted as votes for the November 8 general election, now a week away (and everyone say AMEN). The total absentee ballots, by party registration and method of voting, stands at 1,970,525 This represents a nearly 8 percent increase from the same day in 2012. In terms of party registration within the voting methods (both mail-in and in-person), the total ballots breaks down to 43 percent from registered Democrats, 31 percent from registered Republicans,...

DONALD TRUMP Senior Communications Advisor Jason Miller shared some very positive news on FOX News on Sunday morning. Jason Miller told Melissa Francis the Trump Campaign is up 100,000 votes in Florida and 35,000 votes in North Carolina compared to four years ago.

With the second full day of expanded early voting locations and hours in North Carolina, voters are obviously very interested in doing two things: voting and thus being done with this election. North Carolina's overall absentee ballots continues to run ahead of where the state was four years ago, with interesting differences within the voting method and party registration.

BLDENBORO — The annual Beast Fest brought out the beast in two attendees Saturday and resulted in charges being filed between two N.C. House of Representative candidates. According to witnesses, Republican District 46 candidate Brenden Jones and Democratic candidate Tim Benton were exchanging words Saturday afternoon at the main entrance to the festival near U.S. 242. “Some flyers have evidently been circulating saying Mr. Benton was involved in (a white supremacy group), and he was accusing Mr. Jones of being responsible for the flyers,” said eyewitness Woody Hester. “Mr. Jones told him he wasn’t responsible for the flyers and there...

SANFORD - A group of local Chinese-Americans took their support for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump to new heights on Saturday. The results were visible across much of the Triangle. An ad hoc group of local Chinese-Americans who are linked via a messaging app called WeChat – developed by Chinese company Tencent – pooled their resources to hire a single-engine plane towing a banner that proclaimed: “NC Chinese Americans for Trump.” The 180-horsepower Aviat Husky A-1B’s scheduled four-hour flight path started at the Raleigh Executive Airport in Sanford and included a flyby of Carter-Finley Stadium prior to the game between...

NC’s election board has just reported a high number of complaints about electronic voting machine errors and wrong selections. State Board of Elections spokesman Pat Gannon commented this week that the complaints involved touch-screen machines used for early voting. He noted that the complaints only came from 5 out of the 100 North Carolina counties, including: Cumberland New Hanover Iredell Mecklenburg Catawba

The excitement for Hillary is so great, these women just couldn't take it another minute and had to dance because of their enthusiasm.Note: Be sure to set down your drink and swallow before clicking the link.

As we enter almost a week of in-person absentee (early) voting in North Carolina, the combination of both in-person and mail-in ballots is getting very close to one million total absentee ballots cast in the Old North State.

Wednesday, October 26, 2016: Live streaming coverage of the Donald Trump rally in Kinston, NC at the Kinston Jet Center. Kinston Jet Center

The ‘Mothers of the Movement,’ women dedicated to social justice in the wake of police brutality, were on hand to support Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in her quest for the Presidency over the weekend in North Carolina. Sybrina Fulton (mother of Trayvon Martin), Gwen Carr (mother of Eric Garner), Lucia McBath (mother of Jordan Davis), Maria Hamilton (mother of Dontré Hamilton) and Geneva Reed-Veal (mother of Sandra Bland) voiced their support for Mrs. Clinton at Union Baptist Church in Durham. According to NBC News, Clinton said that the women, whose children were killed by police brutality or gun violence, were...

Hillary Clinton’s campaign is touting some “eye-popping” advantages in early voting, in an apparent effort to energize Democratic voters, but preliminary figures suggest the race remains tighter than her aides acknowledge. The preliminary numbers appear to show Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee, with an edge in several of the roughly 10 battleground states that will decide the 2016 White House race. “We're seeing eye-popping vote-by-mail application numbers,” Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook said on “Fox News Sunday.” In Arizona and North Carolina, for example, more registered Democrats than Republicans have indeed cast early ballots. But such numbers are open to...