David Axelrod, adviser to the Obama campaign, said on MSNBC Tuesday that despite speculation to the contrary, the Obama campaign believes North Carolina is competitive and that the campaign is working hard to win there. “We’ve doubled down” in North Carolina, Axelrod said. “We’re bullish on the opportunity there.”
Axelrod dismissed polls that have prompted pundits to put North Carolina tentatively in Mitt Romney’s column:
“There’s all this conjecture and a lot is animated by this sort of flood of public polling, often contradictory, much of it methodically suspect. And all I know is what is real: What is real is we registered a huge number of voters in that state. What is real is what’s going on on the ground in terms of early voting. We believe it’s competitive and we’re going do everything we can. We invested more money in television in that state. We’re going after North Carolina as we are all the other battleground states and I wouldn’t rule out anything between now and election day.”
On a conference call with reporters Tuesday morning, Obama campaign manager Jim Messina made the same point, saying the campaign isn’t giving up on any swing states.
