A longtime neighbor of alleged Donald Trump gunman Ryan Wesley Routh in North Carolina has admitted Routh was “a little cuckoo” and “a lot of people were afraid” of him.

“I knew he was a little cuckoo,” the anonymous neighbor, who claimed to have known Routh for nearly two decades when he lived in Greensboro, told Fox 8 Sunday, adding, “He’s going to be going away for a long time.”

The woman, however, was still stunned that the devoted Democrat would target the former president.

“I mean, trying to shoot Trump? That’s a lot. I would have never guessed, and I would have swore up and down, no, that’s not him,” Routh’s dumbfounded former neighbor said.

“I just can’t believe it. I mean, if I didn’t see it with my own eyes, I mean the pictures and stuff and all, then I wouldn’t be able to believe that.”

She claimed to have seen Routh with “a lot of guns,” and that his behavior instilled fear in others around the neighborhood when he was living in the Tar Heel State.

“I’ve seen the guns myself and all, and, yeah, they had a lot of guns and stuff over there, and, yeah, a lot of people were afraid of him back in the day,” she told the outlet.

The awestruck neighbor said she last spoke with Routh before he moved to Hawaii in May.

She claimed that nothing seemed off with him when the alleged would-be assassin left North Carolina.

“He told me it was the last day he was here and he hugged me goodbye, and, yeah, he actually hugged me,” she told the outlet.

Routh even gifted her a shirt from Hawaii and hired her son to help with the move, she shared.

“I thought he was just living the life in Hawaii with the girlfriend and all,” his former neighbor said.

“For him to be assassinating the president, that’s just crazy.”

Routh’s LinkedIn page shows he attended North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University but relocated to Hawaii sometime around 2018.

The 58-year-old accused wannabe assassin has a lengthy criminal record from North Carolina, frequently posted about politics, and exclusively donated to Democratic candidates and causes dating back to 2019.

Somebody with Routh’s same full name and date of birth racked up more than a dozen criminal charges in 2001 and 2002, including for carrying a concealed weapon and a hit and run, according to the North Carolina Department of Adult Correction.

The alleged gunman also picked up a particularly alarming felony in April 2002 for “possessing a weapon of mass destruction,” records show.

On Sunday, Routh was spotted by Secret Service agents near the Trump International Golf Club West Palm Beach with a scoped AK-47 rifle.

He had set up a GoPro camera on the fence apparently to record the shooting and built a makeshift sniper’s nest in the hedges at the edge of the golf course, waiting for Trump to come into view.

The Secret Service opened fire on Routh, who fled and was arrested on I-95 by the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office a short time later.

Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw said the suspect took cover near a chain-link fence between 300 and 500 yards from Trump as he teed off at the fifth hole around 2 p.m. — noting that “with a rifle and scope, like, that is not a long distance.”

The suspect’s motives are not yet known.

In a presidential election year, it can be difficult for downballot candidates to get attention. But North Carolina’s candidates for Superintendent of Public Instruction, Republican Michele Morrow and Democrat Mo Green, have squared off in two events in the past week, hoping to distinguish themselves as the best person to run the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction (NCDPI) and administer approximately $11 billion in state and federal funding.

Saturday morning, both Morrow and Green met in person on the NC State campus in an hour-long forum hosted by Public Schools First North Carolina and the North Carolina Parent Teacher Association.

In her opening statement Morrow, a nurse who homeschooled her children, said she believes an outsider is needed to focus on students, not the system.

“There was a time when our students knew what it meant to respect authority and to honor their elders, and that they were proud and that they were appreciative for being citizens in the United States of America,” said Morrow. “But now, ladies and gentlemen, we are in crisis. We are not serving our students, our teachers, our parents, or our administrators well.”

Green, a former superintendent of Guilford County Schools and past executive director of the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation, told the audience this position requires a true champion of public education, especially at a time that North Carolina ranks 48th in school funding.

Per-pupil spending nationally is about $16,000 per student, but in North Carolina that figure is a little more than $11,000 according to Green.

Instead, legislators are funding private school vouchers, that will drain hundreds of millions more from public education.

“And then you talk about the way that our public-school educators and our public schools are being disrespected by many, including my very own opponent who has called our public schools, cesspools of evil lies and deception, has called our educators groomers,” said Green. “I would submit to you that this election is about protecting the very soul of public education.”

Morrow, a conservative activist who has drawn national attention for her calls for political violence, acknowledged that too many teachers are leaving the public school system, and the next state superintendent must address that.

“They are leaving what they were called to do because they don’t feel like they are getting the resources, they’re not getting the support, and they are not able to do what they want to do, which is called to teach,” Morrow said. “They are having to push an agenda.  I’m going to advocate for families, for students, for staff, and I’m going to ensure that the laws are obeyed in every single one of our 115 districts.”

School safety a top concern

On the issue of school safety, Morrow said would push for at least two school resource officers (SROs) in every school.

“We need a code of conduct. We need for parents, teachers, and staff to understand what is going to be expected in conduct as well as academic performance,” Morrow said.

She faulted two group that received funding from the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation that advocated for removing SROs.

“If you live here in Wake County, you have seen in the last week, we have had more than five schools on lockdown. That is absolutely irresponsible,” Morrow said.

Green said strategies he would employ to make schools safer include building effective relationships with law enforcement, increasing the mental health professionals working with students, and hardening some facilities.

“And then finally, character development. I think it’s important that our children understand how to comport themselves, how to be in a relationship with each other, even when they’re in disagreement with each other.”

Raising pay amid a rise in private school vouchers

On the issue of compensation, both candidates agreed that the starting salary for North Carolina’s teachers is not enough.

Morrow said she would like to see starting pay for teachers in the $50,000-$55,000 range, with certain educators earning more based on their skills.

Green suggested starting pay be set at $55,000 to $60,000, with no ceiling on what teachers earn.

Green also made clear his opposition the taxpayer-funded private school voucher program recently expanded by the Republican-controlled legislature.  The additional funding for vouchers approved just last week totals $5 billion over the next decade.

“This is deeply troubling when you think about now the wealthiest of the wealthy, those who can already afford to send their child to a private school already have their child in a private school can now get government assistance. What are we doing?”

Morrow said under her administration, NCDPI would do ‘a deep dive’ into how the money is spent, but “healthy competition creates the best product at the best price.”

Limiting smartphones in schools

With an increasing number of states implementing bans on cellphones in schools, both candidates agreed there should be limitations.

“I’m not at a place where I’m going to say there should be a total ban on cell phones in all of our schools at all times. But I do think that we’ve got to figure our ways to limit the access of cell phones in our schools because our students, I believe, are being inundated with all sorts of things that are distracting them from receiving the educational opportunities that they should be receiving in the classroom,” Green said.

Morrow took it a step further.

“I think it’s very dangerous to have our kids on a screen. When I talk about it as a nurse and the developmental issues that we’re seeing in our young people with the frontal lobe, with their ability to maintain impulse control, I think we absolutely need to remove at least the cell phones from the classroom. I’d also like to see a severe diminishment, if not removal from our elementary school of handheld devices,” she said.

Morrow said it’s more important for students to have face-to-face time with teachers.

Morrow sharpens her attack, Green questions her fitness to lead NC schools

The polite, hour-long conversation on education policy took an unexpected turn in the candidate’s closing remarks.

Morrow said the exodus of teachers and families from North Carolina public schools can be tied to a politicized system, with an agenda funded in part by Z. Smith Reynolds, the foundation Green once led.

“So he can talk a good game, but I want you to know what is at stake. He talks about grooming, well, let me tell you, Planned Parenthood, go look up, Amaze Jr. and Amaze. They are cartoons that are teaching our four to nine-year-olds how to masturbate.

“They’re telling them that it is fine as a four-year-old to poke and prod one another naked, go watch it. It is being funded, it is being promoted by Planned Parenthood who is one of his biggest supporters,” asserted Morrow.

Morrow said white teachers need not apologize for their whiteness.

“We should not be telling our teachers that our minority students cannot perform because you have inherent racism. It’s time for us to recognize that this social, this politically charged, this racially divisive, and this sexually inappropriate content is destroying our children, it’s destroying their future,” said Morrow in her pledge to make schools a place where children are protected and parental rights respected.

Green for his part reminded the audience that it was Morrow who took her children to the attempted insurrection on January 6th at the U.S. Capitol and even suggested then-President Donald Trump use the military to stay in power.

“This is a person who’s called for the executions of many, many folks, listing President Biden and Governor Cooper and President Barack Obama,” said Green in referencing Morrow’s prior social media posts. “Is this the kind of character we want next to our children?”

Voters won’t have to wait long to answer that question. Early in-person voting for the General Election begins on October 17th.

Landon Simonini found himself standing in the middle of a Charlotte highway lane at 2.30 in the afternoon, stuck in an artificial traffic jam while drivers waited for Kamala Harris’s plane to land and the motorcade to clear for the rally later that day.

He was out of his car, because why not? He wasn’t going anywhere soon. His red Make America great again cap stood out among others cursing the traffic gods.

Simonini, born and bred in Charlotte, builds houses. His livelihood depends to some degree on Charlotte’s tremendous growth. But all growth isn’t great, he said.

“This is a traditionally southern state,” Simonini said. “Over 100 people move to Charlotte a day. That is changing the election map. I am born and raised in Charlotte, for 33 years. I have lived here my entire life. I went to school at UNC Charlotte. This is my city. It is a conservative city and I want to keep it that way.”

But in America’s nail-biting 2024 presidential election, North Carolina is now in play. It rejoins a select list of crucial swing states whose voters will decide if Harris becomes America’s first woman of color to win the White House or if Donald Trump returns to the Oval Office from which he wreaked political chaos for four years.

Up until about two months ago, the odds didn’t look like this.

Though the margins in North Carolina have been close for decades in presidential races, Obama in 2008 was the last Democrat since 1976 to win the state, eking out a win by three-tenths of a percent. Biden’s weakness earlier this year threatened to turn North Carolina into an also-ran contest. Every poll through June had Trump beating the president by at least two points, with an average around six.

Party affiliation can only tell so much in a state with a storied history of split-ticket voting. Almost four in 10 of North Carolina’s 7.6 million registered voters choose not to affiliate with a political party. But between August 2020 and August 2024, Republicans added about 161,000 new registered voters in North Carolina while Democrats lost about 135,000 registered voters.

Trump won the state by about 75,000 votes in 2020, a margin of about 1.3%, his closest winning state, before losing the election. Biden won the four states with closer margins – Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Arizona and Georgia.

Biden’s withdrawal and Harris’s ascent scrambled the math. North Carolina’s secretary of state, Elaine Marshall, described the reaction as euphoric.

“It’s such a dramatic contrast from that venom, that poison, that hatred that’s coming from Republican events,” she said. “That contrasts so strongly with the hope and the expectations of the future from Democratic party events.”

The Trump campaign reportedly abandoned its efforts to mount a serious contest in New Hampshire, Minnesota and Virginia recently. That leaves seven states in the political battleground – Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and now North Carolina.

Counting electors aside from the remaining non-battleground states, Harris starts with 226 and Trump with 219. North Carolina can deliver 16 electoral votes to the victor. A candidate must have 270 electoral votes to win the presidency. Only Pennsylvania has more electors among the remaining battleground states.

A re-energized Democratic electorate has been visible in polling data, which now shows the state as tied. Part of that is the roughly 20% of North Carolinians who are Black; increased African American voter turnout helped Obama win the state in 2008.

But the enthusiasm is far more widespread, and was visible this week, when Harris drew 25,000 people to two rallies this week, one in Charlotte and another a few hours later in Greensboro. It was the vice-president’s 17th trip to North Carolina and her ninth just this year.

If Harris wins North Carolina and holds in Michigan and Wisconsin, she need only win one of the four other swing states to clinch the presidency. But if Trump wins North Carolina, he can win the presidency with Arizona, Georgia and Wisconsin even while losing elector-rich Pennsylvania and Michigan.

Melissa Benton waited on one foot for traffic to clear Tuesday night outside the Greensboro coliseum. Her right knee rested on a scooter, keeping her broken ankle off the ground. She came up from Charlotte for the event, she said.

Benton is an Atlanta-area transplant. She left Georgia out of frustration with how her community had changed with growth. The irony is not lost on her.

Locals complain about the rising cost of living, and skyrocketing housing costs are first on the list. Even people who have weathered the slow-motion collapse of the furniture industry over the last 30 years are being saddled with property tax increases as their homes rise in value.

“Every time I meet a native Charlottean, I’m always like, ‘Listen, I’ve been where you are right now,” Benton said. “I swear I’ll be a great citizen, because I understand what it’s like for new people to come in.” She has a keen eye on municipal problems, services and infrastructure. “But it’s also keeping Charlotte Charlotte, and we’ve lost sight of that in some big cities.”

Affordable housing is a crisis in Charlotte, much like it is in Atlanta and Greensboro and most large cities in the US. But in North Carolina, it’s not just an urban problem. Lenoir – pronounced “len-OR” – up at the edge of the Brushy mountain range of the Appalachians, is in one of 73 rural counties in the state, and it has a problem with market rate housing too. About a third of North Carolina’s voters live in rural counties.

The Democratic party has a field office in Lenoir. The lieutenant governor, Mark Robinson, held a campaign event there on Wednesday for his gubernatorial run. Marshall, the secretary of state, held a discussion there last week. No part of the state can escape battleground politics today.

Democrats have long expected a brutal fight in North Carolina, and have been investing time, money and personnel into the state for the last year.

“The Democratic party is certainly trying to reach young people,” Marshall said. It’s also trying hard to connect with young women who may have abortion politics on their mind. “They’ve got Sunday school, and they’ve got work, getting the kids fed and kind of stuff. So suburban mom, working professional women, you know.”

Harris’s visit to North Carolina for her first rallies since the debate is no accident. North Carolina is that important. Trump has planned a rally in Wilmington on North Carolina’s coast next week. JD Vance, his running mate, will be in Raleigh next week as well. The Republican campaign has been sending surrogates to local events regularly. Two weeks from now, former housing secretary Ben Carson will speak at the Salt and Light conference of the North Carolina Faith and Freedom Coalition.

The Democratic party has 26 field offices in North Carolina with 240 paid staff, according to the campaign. The choices of placement for some of the offices, such as rural Wilson county in the state’s “Black belt” and Lenoir in western mountain country, speak to movement away from a focus on high-density urban territory that’s friendly to Democrats.

Democrats are also using their significant financial advantages in fundraising to swaddle broadcast and social media in a blanket of Harris advertising. Organizers say they’ve been on the air with ads for a year. Ad tracking firm AdImpact notes that Democrats have reserved about $50m in ad buys through the end of the cycle, with particular attention paid to Black and Spanish-language media outlets. Trump only began advertising in earnest in August.

But Republican campaign leaders view much of that effort as artificial.

“We feel like, from our standpoint, that the race is a toss-up, but we feel like we still have an advantage,” said Matt Mercer, director of communications for the North Carolina GOP. “One of the big reasons is our leadership. You know, we didn’t abandon a ground game at any level in 2020. What you’re seeing from Democrats is an effort to catch up.”

The Republican campaign is decentralized, Mercer said, accommodating far-flung efforts in a state that’s 560 miles wide from Manteo in the east to Murphy in the west. “You win statewide by going across the entire state, and that means going west of I-77 and east of I-95.”

“For every person that’s moving to Charlotte or Raleigh, you’ve also got retired couples moving to the coast, or you’ve got military deciding to stay in the state,” Mercer said. “You know, I think Democrats kind of fall into this trap where they think growth is all going to benefit them, and they’re just missing it.”

The GOP dominates North Carolina’s legislative branch, which has enough Republicans to override a gubernatorial veto. But North Carolina’s governor, Roy Cooper, is a Democrat and the state has elected a Democratic governor for most of the last 30 years, even as it has delivered wins to Republican presidents.

Josh Stein, North Carolina’s attorney general and the Democratic nominee to succeed Cooper, has maintained a consistent lead over Robinson throughout the year. Robinson is an unusually controversial candidate even by standards set in the Trump era, with a litany of offensive and antisemitic attacks made on social media or in public statements.

Robinson has tried to keep a low profile over the last few months, even as Stein has used his financial edge to batter Robinson with ads drawing primarily on the lieutenant governor’s own words. In recent weeks, Robinson has taken to the campaign trail, meeting with small groups in small towns far away from urban centers, haranguing the media and calling Stein’s ads deceptive. “Josh Stein is a liar,” he said, demanding that a news reporter convey that message to his opponent, along with a demand for a debate.

Stein has, so far, declined.

James Adamakis watched a Robinson stemwinder from a seat at Countryside BBQ in the small town of Marion, North Carolina, on Tuesday. It’s a popular stop for politicians in North Carolina’s rural mountains. A picture of Barack Obama’s visit in 2011 hangs proudly on the wall next to the cash register.

Adamakis works in juvenile justice. The military veteran supports Republicans because they’re tougher on crime he said. But he acknowledges that even people who share his political values may vote in peculiar ways in North Carolina.

He described the conversion of one of his friends into a Republican. “It was the economics, where he just kept seeing the inflation and buying groceries and everything,” Adamakis said. “He was like, why is the media and Biden saying that it’s good when it’s not? I think that the economy cuts across lines.

“Everybody you meet in western North Carolina still may vote Democrat, but they still don’t like that.”

But political diversity is about more than race in North Carolina. The economy of a place like Research Triangle Park near Durham is fundamentally different from the banking sector in Charlotte, or the tourism of the southern coast, or mountain towns struggling to reinvent themselves.

“It might be easier in my job if there were just one [swing voter], but there’s not,” Mercer said. And I think that dynamism is what makes the state so interesting and so hard to win, and why you truly need to understand the entire state.”