WASHINGTON ― The chair of President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign said she does not consider Florida a battleground state in the 2024 election but is “bullish” on winning a different state that Donald Trump carried the last election − North Carolina.

The Biden campaign aggressively talked up Florida being in play for Biden after the state’s Supreme Court in March upheld Florida’s strict abortion laws and also cleared the way for a referendum guaranteeing the right to an abortion to go before Florida voters on the November ballot.

But in an interview with Puck News published Monday, Jen O’Malley Dillon, the campaign’s chair, said, “No,” when asked directly whether she sees Florida as a battleground state.

Florida, with 30 electoral votes up for grabs, last voted Democratic in a presidential election in 2012, when President Barack Obama edged Republican Mitt Romney by less than 1 percentage point. It’s shifted red in the two elections since. Trump, the former president, carried Florida over Hillary Clinton 48.6%-47.4% in 2016, and he expanded the margin of victory to 3.3 percentage points over Biden in 2020.

In a statement to USA TODAY, the Biden campaign insisted the president can carry Florida in November and touted recent campaign investments in the state − including television ads running this week − even if the Sunshine State isn’t among top battlegrounds.

The Biden campaign, which has 28 staffers working in Florida after making an additional 20 hires this month, will have 13 offices across Florida by the end of the week. Biden visited Tampa, Fla. in April to discuss access to abortion and Vice President Kamala Harris gave remarks in Jacksonville, Fla. in May.

“Florida is in play for President Biden and Democrats up and down the ballot,” Dan Kanninen, the Biden campaign’s battleground states director, said in a statement. “The president has a strong story to tell on the issues that matter most to Floridians, which is why our campaign continues to scale up our presence and investments into the state.”

More: Is Florida now in play for Biden? 3 takeaways for 2024 from court’s abortion rulings

The most heavily contested states of the 2024 campaign are six swing states that Biden won in 2020: the so-called “Blue wall” states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, as well as Georgia, Arizona and Nevada.

The Biden campaign has circled North Carolina, which Biden lost by 1.3 percentage points to Trump in 2020, as a prime possible pick-up − and invested heavily there − while the Trump campaign has talked about flipping two Biden states to expand the map: Virginia and Minnesota.

“We have multiple paths to victory,” O’Malley Dillon told Puck News, referring to the 270 electoral votes to secure victory, later emphasizing the Tar Heel State in her interview. “I am bullish on North Carolina, and I don’t f— around in saying that, because I was bullish on Arizona (four years ago) and that’s because we looked at it very closely.”

More: The next Georgia? Biden campaign targets North Carolina to reshape 2024 electoral map

Biden flipped historically red Arizona into the Democratic column in 2020, becoming the first Democrat to win the state since Bill Clinton in 1996.

Why so bullish on North Carolina?

North Carolina, which last voted Democratic in 2008 and has 16 electoral votes, is attractive for Biden and Democrats for several reasons.

Biden 2020 loss to Trump in North Carolina was the smallest margin of all the states he lost. And North Carolina’s booming suburbs with college-educated voters around Charlotte and Raleigh’s “Research Triangle,” combined with its sizable Black population, is a similar formula that put Georgia, once a reliably red state, in play for Democrats.

“We lost it by just 1.3 percentage points in 2020 and we did not play there, number one. Number two, obviously, there’s some element of demographics, but I don’t believe that’s enough,” O’Malley said of North Carolina.

O’Malley Dillon, who was campaign manager during Biden’s 2020 run, above all pointed to “extreme laws” that have passed the Republican-controlled North Carolina, including new abortion restrictions, and a “beyond-extreme candidate running for governor,” referring to Mark Robinson, North Carolina’s Republican nominee for governor.

Democrats believe the state’s new abortion law, which bans most abortions after 12 weeks of pregnancy, will help energize their base. And they believe Biden can benefit from the candidacy of Robinson, a firebrand Republican lieutenant governor with a trail of controversial statements. Robinson is running against Josh Stein, North Carolina’s Democratic attorney general, in the race to replace outgoing Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper.

“If you put all those pieces together … we really see that (North Carolina) is in play,” O’Malley Dillon said.

Trump currently leads Biden in North Carolina by 5.8 percentage points, according to the Real Clear Politics average of polls. Trump leads Biden in Florida by 7.6 percentage points, according to polling averages.

Reach Joey Garrison on X @joeygarrison.

NORTH TOPSAIL BEACH, N.C. (WECT/WITN/Gray News) – A 14-year-old was bitten by a shark on Sunday in North Carolina, authorities said.

North Topsail Beach Police Chief William K. Younginer said it happened at about 12:30 p.m. at a county beach access at 474 New River Inlet Road.

He said he did not see the shark or know what type it is.

Two officers and emergency responders were already at the beach, giving aid to other people, when people flagged them down to help the injured teen. The response time was two minutes.

People at the beach were trying to help by putting pressure on the wound and wrapping it with towels. Police applied a tourniquet to the 14-year-old, Younginer said.

The teen was moved to the Naval Medical Center Camp Lejeune, and Younginer said he’s expected to be OK.

Copyright 2024 WECT via Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved.

Since their advent in 1960, modern televised presidential debates have always taken place in the latter days of the campaign — usually in October.

This year, things will be very different. The first of two debates between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump will take place this Thursday, June 27 in Atlanta — in the heat of summer and prior even to the formal party nominations that each man will receive in July (Trump) and August (Biden). A second earlier-than-usual debate is currently scheduled for Tuesday, September 10.

And in keeping with what has clearly been an all-out effort by the Biden-Harris campaign to capitalize on the momentum it senses it has gathered in the aftermath of Trump’s conviction in May on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to a hush money payoff to a porn star, North Carolina — a state that Trump won handily in 2016 and narrowly in 2020 — has risen to become priority for the Democratic ticket in 2024.

It’s already been widely reported that President and First Lady Jill Biden will travel to the Raleigh area on Friday as one of their first stops after the debate, but Newsline has learned that the Friday appearance will actually serve as the culmination of a week of intense campaign activity in the state — one that commenced last Friday with an event highlighting the second anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs ruling that ended the constitutional right to abortion and continued on Sunday with the opening of a Raleigh campaign office.

Among the events scheduled in the coming days, according to a campaign representative:

• Monday, June 24: Dobbs Anniversary Press Conference with U.S. House Minority Whip Katherine Clark, Congresswoman Alma Adams, and Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles: On the day of the anniversary of the Dobbs decision, U.S. House Minority Whip Katherine Clark, Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles, Congresswoman Alma Adams, and State Representative Diamond Staton-Williams will join local leaders, health care providers and storytellers to campaign for President Biden and Vice President Harris and underscore the threat a second Donald Trump term poses to North Carolinians’ reproductive freedoms.

• Tuesday, June 25: Dobbs Anniversary Roundtable with State Representative Lindsay Prather, former State Senator Terry Van Duyn, storytellers, advocates and providers: North Carolina elected officials, providers, and advocates will hold a roundtable discussion to underscore the importance of this election in determining our reproductive freedoms.

• Tuesday, June 25: Campaign Reception in Charlotte with First Lady Jill Biden: Ahead of the debate and a rally in Raleigh with President Joe Biden, the First Lady will attend a campaign reception in Charlotte.

• Wednesday, June 26: Pre-debate press call with economists and business leaders about Trump’s threat to our economy: Economists and business leaders from across the state will hold a press call focused on the contrast between President Biden’s delivering for working and middle class families across North Carolina, ushering in the strongest economy in the world and bringing unemployment to historic lows, with Donald Trump’s push to slash taxes for his billionaire friends and large corporations.

• Thursday, June 27: Debate Watch Parties across North Carolina: The campaign will host 24 watch parties across the state with over 1000 attendees – with countless other North Carolinians hosting watch parties in their homes. Watch parties will serve as a way to fire up volunteers and demonstrate to voters the stark contrast between Joe Biden and Donald Trump.

• Friday, June 28: Immediately following the debate, President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden will travel to North Carolina for a rally in the Raleigh area.

The representative told Newsline the campaign will also host more than 150 events across the state next weekend — canvass launches, phonebanks, volunteer trainings, and other events — leading up to Friday’s presidential visit.

CBS reports that Donald Trump, who has not campaigned in North Carolina since severe weather scuttled a planned Wilmington rally in April, has announced that his first post-debate campaign event will take place somewhere in the Virginia Beach-Hampton Roads region of Virginia — an area that is accessible to many residents of northeastern North Carolina.