WINTERVILLE, N.C. — With fewer than five days left before the election, the bitter fight for the presidency descended Thursday on North Carolina, a crucial battleground where Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump attacked one another at competing campaign events.
Clinton urged African American voters here to turn out, warning them that Trump’s vision for his presidency would leave them behind. About 200 miles to the west, in Concord, Trump cast Clinton as a “candidate of yesterday” and complained that he is held to a different standard than his Democratic rival.
Hours later, the Democratic and Republican nominees held dueling events in Raleigh and Selma, respectively, throwing more jabs at one another.
It all came on a whirlwind day on the campaign trail as a full slate of surrogates, including President Obama and Melania Trump, were dispatched to key swing states to make closing arguments for their candidates. Polls show a tightening contest, adding a sense of urgency to each campaign stop.
Clinton told a crowd of about 1,800 on the grounds of Pitt Community College that Trump “has spent this entire campaign offering a dog whistle to his most hateful supporters.” She said he “retweets white supremacists and spreads racially tinged conspiracy theories,” and noted that Trump had been endorsed by the Ku Klux Klan.
Trump’s campaign has rejected the endorsement. Trump’s son Eric said in a Thursday radio interview with KHOW in Denver that former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard David Duke “does deserve a bullet,” agreeing with an assertion his interviewer made.
Clinton noted that Trump had been repeatedly accused of housing discrimination at his real estate properties and that he had continued to proclaim the guilt of five black and Hispanic men, the Central Park Five, on assault and rape accusations, even after DNA evidence exonerated them.
“Do any of us have a place in Trump’s America?” Clinton asked.
At his Concord rally, Trump drew attention to the FBI’s renewed inquiry into Clinton’s email practices while she was secretary of state, when she used a private server.
“Now she’s got bigger problems. If she were to win, it would create an unprecedented constitutional crisis that would cripple the operations of our government,” Trump said. He did not present evidence for his claim.
The GOP nominee also criticized now-interim Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Donna Brazile, after an email released by the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks indicated that she had provided debate questions in advance to the Clinton campaign. Trump said that if he had done something similar, he would have faced a bigger backlash.
“Headlines: ‘Trump to leave race,’ ” he said, opining about what the media reaction would have been had that happened.
North Carolina’s 15 electoral votes will be among the biggest prizes Tuesday night, and Thursday’s schedule reflected that. At one point in the afternoon, both Trump’s and Clinton’s airplanes were at the Raleigh-Durham airport.
After the state voted Republican for seven straight presidential elections, Obama turned the state blue in 2008. But it flipped back to Republican Mitt Romney in 2012, and the GOP further reasserted itself in the 2014 midterms.
Clinton’s appeal to black voters in North Carolina has become increasingly urgent as early voting results show turnout among African American voters in the state has fallen from 2008 levels. A combination of fewer early voting sites, lower enthusiasm for Clinton and legal disputes about voter registration records are to blame. But the Clinton campaign has pointed to higher black turnout in recent days, after the number of polling places in the state were dramatically increased, as a sign that the situation is improving.
Trump continued his attack on Clinton at an outdoor rally in Selma, N.C., on Thursday night that attracted more than 15,000 people. Trump was joined on stage by decorated military veterans who support him.
“You know, when I look at these brave admirals and these great generals and these great medal of honor recipients behind me, to think of her being their boss? I don’t think so,” Trump said.
Trump reiterated his military-related campaign promises, telling the crowd that he would fully fund all branches of the military, push allies to pay more for U.S. protection and only resort to military force when it’s vital to the safety of the country, among other things.
Trump again criticized Clinton for using a private email server while secretary of state. As he spoke of Clinton, one man screamed: “Communist!” And the crowd repeatedly chanted: “Lock her up! Lock her up!”
Clinton, meanwhile, held a joint rally Thursday night in Raleigh, N.C., with her former primary rival, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, and musician Pharrell.
The mostly younger crowed of 5,200 at an outdoor concert venue screamed energetically as Sanders took the stage and delivered remarks that didn’t stray very much from the stump speech that had become his staple in the Democratic primary.
Sanders urged the crowd to vote for Clinton based on the issues — particularly economic fairness and access to health care.
“This campaign is not a personality contest,” Sanders said. “We’re not voting for high school president, we’re voting for the most powerful leader in the entire world.”
Clinton promised that she and Sanders would work together to push shared priorities in January, including a plan they jointly drafted to make tuition free at public colleges and universities for families making less than $125,000 a year.
“This election has been a lot more fun now that we’re on the same side,” Clinton said.
She also argued that the best way to reject what she characterized as Trump’s divisive rhetoric would be to vote in record numbers.
“The best way to repudiate the bigotry and the bluster and the bullying and the hateful rhetoric and discrimination is to show up with the biggest turnout in American history,” she said.
Earlier in the day, Trump and Obama held dueling rallies in all-important Florida, with the president seeking to rally young voters for Clinton, and Trump trying to stoke concerns about Clinton’s practices as secretary of state.
Speaking at Florida International University in Miami, Obama called Trump “uniquely unqualified” and “temperamentally unfit” to be president. Later, in Jacksonville, Trump claimed that Clinton is under “criminal investigation” for “pay-for-play corruption” by the FBI, though no such investigation has been announced.
Trump’s wife, Melania, made her highest-profile appearance on the campaign trail since her speech at the Republican National Convention. She delivered a speech in a Philadelphia suburb, vowing to be “an advocate for women and children” if she becomes first lady.
In Berwyn, Pa., she talked about her journey from Slovenia to becoming a U.S. citizen. She praised her husband for being “beholden to no one,” and told the crowd: “He certainly knows how to shake things up, doesn’t he?”
Melania Trump also voiced concerns about online bullying directed at children, saying that “technology has changed our universe,” but that “like anything that is powerful, it can have a bad side.”
As a candidate for president, Trump has routinely used his Twitter account to attack and belittle critics, rivals and others with whom he takes issue.
Clinton’s running mate, Sen. Tim Kaine (Va.), delivered an entire campaign speech in Spanish on Thursday afternoon in Phoenix, where he stressed his belief in an inclusive politics that celebrates diversity. He criticized Trump’s controversial rhetoric about immigrants, calling the GOP nominee a “payaso,” or clown.
Kaine later appeared at a rally in Tucson that also featured former Arizona representative Gabby Giffords. Giffords and her husband have become leading gun control advocates in the aftermath of an assassination attempt against her in 2011 that left her with a brain injury.
The Clinton campaign announced Thursday that her final rally before Election Day will be Monday evening in Philadelphia. She will be joined by Obama, first lady Michelle Obama, and Bill and Chelsea Clinton, the campaign said.
Trump’s campaign released a new TV ad that seeks to highlight the renewed scrutiny of Clinton’s emails and tie her to disgraced former representative Anthony Weiner, whom the narrator of the commercial calls a “pervert.”
Emails were found on a computer belonging to Weiner, who is under investigation for allegedly exchanging lewd messages with a 15-year-old girl, triggered the FBI to revisit Clinton’s email practices. Weiner is separated from Huma Abedin, Clinton’s long-time aide.
The Trump campaign continued to argue it has its sights set on Democratic-leaning states in the final days of the race. In an interview on MSNBC, Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway said the campaign is trying to make a push into Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. But polls show Clinton leading in those states.
“I mean, look, if you try to apply conventional political wisdom to Donald Trump, you lose every time,” Conway said. “The idea that, well, Michigan or Wisconsin have been elusive to Republican candidates. He’s just different. His message on illegal immigration, trade and jobs and patriotism. . . . It’s just a different messenger.”
Johnson reported from Concord, N.C., and Selma, N.C. Sullivan reported from Washington. Jose A. DelReal, Sari Horwitz and John Wagner in Washington contributed to this report.