Donald Trump plays defense and offense in race’s final phase

As Democrat Hillary Clinton grapples with concerns over the renewed FBI scrutiny of her private email server, Trump is targeting Michigan, Wisconsin and other states in her “blue wall” that have voted Democratic for decades. But he’s also trying to shore up the Tar Heel State, where a loss would all but end his White House chances.

Before several thousand cheering supporters in this Charlotte suburb, he invoked the federal scrutiny of Clinton’s private email server, saying a vote for her would create an “unprecedented constitutional crisis” and four years of ongoing investigations.

“She got away with murder. Honestly, she has no right to be running. You know that,” Trump said. “It will probably end up, in my opinion, in a criminal trial. Who knows? But it will certainly be spoken of. Americans deserve a government that can work — and really has to work — from Day One.”

Clinton, too, was in North Carolina on Thursday, stumping with Vermont U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders and music star Pharell Williams in Raleigh to try to drive millennial voters to the polls. She can still clinch the presidency without winning North Carolina, but flipping it blue would essentially guarantee her victory.

At her event in Greenville, she said Trump has spent his campaign “offering a dog whistle to his most hateful supporters” and slammed him for getting the endorsement of the Ku Klux Klan’s official newspaper, which was deposited last week on the lawns of a handful of North Georgia Clinton supporters.

“They said it’s about preserving white identity, and they placed their faith and hope in him,” she said, then referred to an endorsement written under his campaign slogan of “Make America Great Again.”

“You have to ask,” she said, “do any of us have a place in Trump’s America?”

A razor-thin race

A race that seemed Clinton’s to lose just two weeks ago has tightened considerably and given Trump new hope, even though the electoral math still favors the Democrat. Just a week ago Clinton supporters boasted about competing in Georgia and Texas. Now her campaign has retrenched to a string of mostly neck-and-neck states.

The two fall within the margin of error in the first ABC News/Washington Post poll conducted after FBI Director James Comey announced his agency was delving into new emails that could be linked to Clinton's use of a private email server while secretary of state. Still, she leads in Colorado, Pennsylvania and other states key to her coalition.

In Georgia, Trump has etched a narrow if consistent lead in recent polling. The Real Clear Politics poll of public polling has Clinton trailing Trump by about 5 points, and an Emerson College survey released Wednesday gives Trump a 9-point advantage.

North Carolina, though, is smack in the middle of the fight. It has the chance to not only decide the presidential race, but also control of the Senate, where the contest between Republican U.S. Sen. Richard Burr and Democrat Deborah Ross is too close to call.

The presidential race, too, is as close as it’s ever been. President Barack Obama won a surprise victory in North Carolina in 2008 but lost the state’s 15 electoral votes in 2012 to Mitt Romney. Polls here show a seesaw battle between Trump and Clinton — the Real Clear Politics poll of polls gives him a minuscule lead — and the race seems tighter than ever.

Trump and Clinton both crisscrossed the state Thursday, making two stops each, and they both made plans to return before Tuesday. The two have combined to visit North Carolina nearly two dozen times since June.

Their top surrogates have swamped North Carolina all week, including a visit by Obama on Wednesday — where he worried the “black vote is not as solid as it needs to be” for Clinton — and an appearance by Democratic U.S. Rep. John Lewis of Atlanta, who led a march to the polls in Charlotte.

About 2 million voters — close to half the state’s electorate — have already cast ballots, and analysts say the data signal that Clinton has banked an early lead. Worried Republicans are looking for every chance to rally their base with only days left in the race.

“Elections aren’t about feelings and patriotism. They’re about numbers,” said North Carolina Lt. Gov. Dan Forest, a Republican. “We have a formula. We know how to win North Carolina. Get out and vote.”

Breaking the barrier?

At his rally in Concord, Trump rattled off the names of a handful of North Carolina businesses that shuttered factories before making his pitch for a wall on the U.S. border with Mexico to resounding cheers of “build the wall.”

Many of Trump’s supporters don’t buy the polls that show Clinton ahead in many of the most competitive states. Bill Treat, a 77-year-old retiree from Charlotte, said he’s heard from Democrats and independents who are quietly backing Trump — but would never admit it to a pollster.

“They are facing peer pressure. They won’t talk about,” Treat said. “I think a lot of Democrats are in for a shock on Tuesday.”

Trump’s path remains perilous. He must win Florida and Ohio, which twice voted for Obama, and hold North Carolina in the red column to keep alive his chances. Even then, he will need to flip Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin or another state that hasn’t voted for a GOP presidential nominee in decades.

The next few days will underscore that political reality. Clinton is set to campaign Friday in Detroit, where her electoral hopes depend on tremendous turnout from black voters, and her stable of allies are looking to play defense in friendlier territory.

Trump, meanwhile, plans trips to New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania and then back to North Carolina over the next four days. And his campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, told MSNBC on Thursday that the campaign could pull off a few surprises on Tuesday in Maine, Nevada, New Hampshire and other states where Clinton is leading.

“We’re scaling the blue wall,” she said, “and crumbling it down.”