Hillary launching her social justice campaign.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton campaign together next week for the first time this year, and their decision to meet up in Charlotte says a lot about how her campaign views her path to replace him in the White House.
Democrats see North Carolina as a prime place to expand into Republican territory against Donald Trump, building upon one of Obama's biggest triumphs in 2008 and his narrow loss four years ago.
The state's electorate has become more diverse since Obama's first presidential campaign. Women play an increasingly influential role in the state's politics, giving Clinton an opportunity to play up her potential to become the first woman to win the White House.
And contentious moves by the GOP-controlled state legislature to exclude sexual orientation and gender identity from statewide anti-discrimination protections and to require transgender people to use restrooms corresponding to the sex on their birth certificate in public buildings has touched a nerve in the battleground state.
"I told her that the state is winnable. I think she believes that in her core," said Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx, a former Charlotte mayor, describing a recent conversation with Clinton. "North Carolina is a classic battleground state. It's a state with people who are hungry for progressive change."
Foxx added: "There's been a lot of things at the state level that have reminded people that North Carolina's proud progressive tradition is under assault right now."
The Obama-Clinton event comes three days after Clinton gave a voluntary 3 ½ hour interview at FBI headquarters about her use of a private, homebrew email server. While the interview was expected and some legal experts view prosecution as exceedingly unlikely, the ongoing investigation represents a major risk for Democrats and poses as an unwelcome distraction.
Clinton's campaign is targeting about a dozen battleground states that were fiercely contested by Obama and Republican nominee Mitt Romney in 2012. Like Obama, she enters the summer with a number of pathways to reach 270 electoral votes, with large states such as Florida, Ohio and North Carolina potentially to put her over the top on Election Day.
Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee, had planned to appear with Obama in Green Bay, Wisconsin, in mid-June, but the rally was postponed after the deadly Orlando nightclub shooting. Campaign officials said Democrats feel they have largely consolidated support for Clinton in Wisconsin in the weeks since, prompting them to shift their splashy kickoff in the city that held Obama's 2012 Democratic convention.