Biden and Harris tout healthcare in North Carolina, a state they aim to flip

By Nandita Bose and Jarrett Renshaw

RALEIGH, North Carolina (Reuters) -U.S. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris traveled to North Carolina on Tuesday to contrast their healthcare agenda with Republican policy aims as their reelection campaign seeks to flip the state for the first time since 2008.

The North Carolina trip marked the finale of Biden's tour of campaign battleground states following his State of the Union speech earlier this month.

Biden, a Democrat, used the tour to draw contrasts with Republicans and to raise millions of dollars as top Republican rival Donald Trump remains bogged down in costly criminal and civil legal challenges.

Biden's reelection campaign is eyeing North Carolina after Trump barely eked out a win there the last time the two went head-to-head in 2020. Barack Obama was the last Democrat to win the Southern state in 2008, but Democrats note that the margin of victory for Republicans has narrowed in recent elections.

Biden and Harris, who has led the White House charge to support abortion rights after the Supreme Court stuck down Roe v Wade in 2022, touted their healthcare achievements to a crowd of supporters in Raleigh and pledged to do more if reelected.

"While President Biden and I are fighting to expand access to affordable healthcare, there are extremists in our country trying to take away healthcare coverage, or make it more expensive," Harris said.

Biden said Trump had sought to end the Affordable Care Act (ACA), also known as Obamacare, which has significantly cut the number of uninsured Americans since it became law.

"Even during the deadly pandemic, Trump and his MAGA friends in Congress wanted to get rid of the ACA, kick millions of Americans off their health insurance. It's sick," he said.

Biden's remarks were interrupted briefly by protesters over Israel's war with Hamas in Gaza. “They have a point, we need to get a lot more care into Gaza," Biden said to applause.

The White House has touted record enrollment in Obamacare as well as a price cap on insulin and a plan to empower the federal government to negotiate Medicare drug prices with pharmaceutical companies for the first time.

It contrasts those accomplishments with a budget presented by the Republican Study Committee that White House senior adviser Anita Dunn said will slash the Obamacare and Medicaid health insurance for the poor while stripping protections for pre-existing conditions.

Trump currently leads Biden by 3% in North Carolina, according to the latest opinion poll by the Marist Institute for Public Opinion. Like other polls, the Marist survey shows Biden losing ground among critical Black voters.

The former president said on his social media platform on Tuesday that he did not want to end the ACA but make it stronger and less expensive. During his 2016 presidential campaign, Trump vowed repeatedly to repeal and replace the law, but he failed to do so during his White House tenure.

Democrats are hoping some down-ballot races could help Biden pull out a win come November. They believe Mark Robinson, the Republican candidate for governor, could swing voters to the Democratic ticket in 2024.

Robinson has built a reputation as a political firebrand, and forged a path in politics partly through incendiary comments on social issues, which have mobilized his Trump-aligned base and repulsed Democrats.

Robinson has a history of antisemitic comments and opposes abortion and gay rights.

(Reporting by Nandita Bose and Jarrett Renshaw; additional reporting by Jeff Mason and Eric Beech; Editing by Mary Milliken, Jonathan Oatis and Bill Berkrot)