North Carolina

RALEIGH, N.C. — North Carolina Republican legislative leaders completed their remapping of the state’s U.S. House districts on Wednesday, intent on picking up one more seat to help President Trump’s efforts to retain GOP control of Congress in next year’s midterm elections.

The new boundaries approved by the state House could thwart the reelection of Democratic U.S. Rep. Don Davis, who currently represents more than 20 northeastern counties. The state Senate already approved the plan in a party-line vote on Tuesday.

Republicans hold majorities in both General Assembly chambers, and Democratic Gov. Josh Stein is unable under state law to use his veto stamp on redistricting maps. So the GOP’s proposal can now be implemented unless likely litigation by Democrats or voting rights advocates stops it. Candidate filing for 2026 is scheduled to begin Dec. 1.

Republican lawmakers made the intent of their proposed changes crystal clear — it’s an attempt to satisfy Trump’s call for GOP-led states to secure more seats for the party nationwide, so that Congress can continue advancing his agenda. Democrats have responded with rival moves in blue states. A president’s party historically loses seats in midterm elections, and Democrats currently need just three more seats to flip House control.

“The new congressional map improves Republican political strength in eastern North Carolina and will bring in an additional Republican seat to North Carolina’s congressional delegation,” GOP Rep. Brenden Jones said during a debate that Republicans cut off after an hour.

Democratic state Rep. Gloristine Brown, an African American who represents an eastern North Carolina county, made an impassioned floor speech in opposition, saying “You are silencing Black voices and are going against the will of your constituents.”

“North Carolina is a testing ground for the new era of Jim Crow laws,” Brown said.

Republican-led Texas and Missouri already have revised their U.S. House districts to try to help Republicans win additional seats. Democratic-led California reciprocated by asking the state’s voters to approve a map revised to elect more Democrats, and Jones accused California Gov. Gavin Newsom of ramping up the redistricting fight.

“We will not let outsiders tell us how to govern, and we will never apologize for doing exactly what the people of this state has elected us to do,” Jones said.

North Carolina’s replacement map would exchange several counties in Davis’ current 1st District with another coastal district. Statewide election data suggests this would favor Republicans winning 11 of 14 House seats, up from the 10 they now hold, in a state where Trump got 51% of the popular vote in 2024.

Davis is one of North Carolina’s three Black representatives. Map critics suggested this latest GOP map could be challenged as an illegal racial gerrymander in a district that has included several majority Black counties, electing African Americans to the U.S. House continuously since 1992.

Davis is already vulnerable — he won his second term by less than 2 percentage points, and the 1st District was one of 13 nationwide where both Trump and a Democratic House member was elected last year, according to the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia.

Davis on Tuesday called the proposed map “beyond the pale.”

Hundreds of Democratic and liberal activists swarmed the legislative complex this week, blasting GOP legislators for doing Trump’s bidding with what they called a power grab through a speedy and unfair redistricting process.

“If you pass this, your legacy will be shredding the Constitution, destroying democracy,” Karen Ziegler with the grassroots group Democracy Out Loud, told senators this week. She accused the state GOP of “letting Donald Trump decide who represents the people of North Carolina.”

Democrats said this map is a racial gerrymander that will dismantle decades of voting rights progress in North Carolina’s “Black Belt” region. Republicans counter that no racial data was used in forming the districts, and the redrawing was based on political parties, not race.

Based on last week’s arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court in a Louisiana redistricting case, the Democrats may lose this line of attack. A majority of justices appears willing to neuter a key tool of the Voting Rights Act that has protected political boundaries created to help Black and Latino residents elect favored candidates, who have tended to be Democrats.

State GOP leaders say Trump won North Carolina all three times that he’s run for president — albeit narrowly last year — and thus merits more GOP support in Congress. Senate leader Phil Berger called it appropriate “under the law and in conjunction with basically listening to the will of the people.”

Robertson writes for the Associated Press.

PORTLAND, Maine — Maine’s two-term Democratic Gov. Janet Mills will run for the U.S. Senate seat held by veteran Republican Sen. Susan Collins next year, two people familiar with Mills’ plans said Friday.

The development sets up a potential showdown between the parties’ best-known figures in a state where Democrats see a chance to gain a seat in their uphill quest for the Senate majority.

Mills is tentatively expected to announce her candidacy Tuesday, according to the people, who insisted on anonymity to discuss plans they were not authorized to share publicly.

Mills was the top choice of national Democrats who have long tried to unseat Collins, who has held the seat since 1997. She was urged to run by party leaders including New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, the Senate minority leader. And though she met only once with Schumer to discuss the race early this year, her decision is viewed as a recruiting win for Democrats, who also have well-known figures with statewide experience running for seats held by Republicans in North Carolina and Ohio.

Democrats see the Maine seat as especially important, considering it is the only one on the 2026 Senate election calendar where Republicans are defending an incumbent in a state carried last year by Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris.

Still, a Democratic majority in the 100-member Senate remains a difficult proposition.

The party would need to gain a net of four seats, while most of the states with Senate elections next year are places where Republican Donald Trump beat Harris. Maine is an exception, while in North Carolina, where Trump narrowly won, Democratic former Gov. Roy Cooper is viewed as a contender, and Democratic former Sen. Sherrod Brown is running in Ohio, where Trump won comfortably and Brown was defeated in November.

Mills gained national attention in February during a White House meeting of governors with Trump when she announced to him, “We’ll see you in court,” over her opposition to his call for denying states federal funding over transgender rights.

In April, Maine officials sued the Trump administration in an effort to stop the federal government from freezing federal funding to the state in light of its decision to defy a federal ban on allowing transgender students to participate in sports.

Mills stoked Democratic enthusiasm in April when she said of the lawsuit, “I’ve spent the better part of my career listening to loud men talk tough to disguise their weaknesses.”

Mills, 77, is a former state attorney general who won the governorship in 2018 and again in 2022. Maine governors are barred from seeking a third term and, while Mills early this year seemed to dismiss a Senate campaign, she said she had rethought the notion and was “seriously considering” running.

She had set a November deadline for making a decision, though as of mid-September, she was interviewing prospective senior campaign staffers.

A campaign against Collins would pit her against a senator who has built a reputation as a moderate but who was a key supporter of Trump’s Cabinet and judicial nominations. A spokesperson for Collins declined to comment on the expected upcoming Mills announcement.

Collins, 72, has won all of her four reelection campaigns by double-digit percentages, except in 2020.

That year, Collins defeated Democratic challenger Sara Gideon, the former speaker of the Maine House of Representatives, by more than 8 percentage points in a race Democrats felt confident could help them gain a seat in the Senate. Collins won in a year Democrats gained a net of three seats in the chamber. She won despite Trump losing Maine to Democrat Joe Biden by 9 percentage points.

Like Collins, Mills was born in rural Maine. She became Maine’s first female criminal prosecutor in the mid-1970s, and she would later become the state’s first elected female district attorney as well as its first female attorney general and governor. She served as attorney general twice, from 2009 to 2011 and from 2013 to 2019.

A few other challengers have declared candidacies for the Democratic nomination, including oyster farmer Graham Platner, who has launched an aggressive social media campaign. Platner has the backing of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who posted on social media on Thursday that Platner is “a great working class candidate for Senate in Maine who will defeat Susan Collins” and that it’s “disappointing that some Democratic leaders are urging Gov. Mills to run.”

Whittle and Beaumont write for the Associated Press and reported from Portland and Des Moines, respectively. AP writer Seung Min Kim in Washington contributed to this report.

As a major storm rushed toward Florida last October, the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency at the time faced a different kind of threat. Police had shown up in force to a rental property she owned as a result of a prank call, in a potentially dangerous attack known as “swatting.”

Back-to-back Hurricanes Helene and Milton had sparked a torrent of online conspiracies, with FEMA officials facing harassment and death threats, according to hundreds of pages of agency emails and other documents obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request by Bloomberg News. The records shed new light on how disaster-related misinformation affects the government’s emergency response, sucks up internal resources, and puts staff at risk.

Deanne Criswell, who ran FEMA under President Joe Biden, learned about the swatting situation as she was about to brief TV viewers on Milton, one of the most powerful storms on record to develop in the Gulf of Mexico. “It was a very unsettling feeling,” she said in a recent interview, thinking back on how she juggled her concern for her renters along with preparing Floridians for the storm.

FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell testifies during a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing, November 20, 2024.

(Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

Many of the attacks outlined in the documents have not previously been reported, including the doxxing of at least seven senior FEMA staffers. In those incidents sensitive personal information, such as home addresses, was published online for the purpose of harassment. The records also reveal challenges the agency faced as it tried to control the situation.

The incidents followed an online wave of disinformation suggesting FEMA was mishandling the response to the hurricanes that pummeled Florida and North Carolina in the lead up to the presidential election. Among the debunked claims swirling at the time were reports that agency workers had seized property from survivors and confiscated donations.

The offensive diverted agency time and resources to set the record straight and protect personnel. “It made my staff nervous,” said Criswell. “It made people in the community nervous. They didn’t know who to believe. They didn’t know who to trust.”The threat of misinformation continues to loom over the agency at a time when President Donald Trump and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem have made steep cuts to its staffing and funding, including pulling back on some of the resources FEMA used last fall to combat threats. In the aftermath of deadly Texas floods in July, for example, conspiracy theories online blamed cloud seeding.

“The profit-driven platform model, where sensational falsehoods outperform factual updates in emergencies, ensures this problem persists across political cycles and it can put lives at risk,” said Callum Hood, head of research at the nonprofit Center for Countering Digital Hate.

A FEMA spokesperson said in an email the agency “uses internal DHS resources to identify and mitigate any personal threats to employees.”

A trail of disinformation

Workers, community members, and business owners clean up debris in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene in Marshall, North Carolina, Sept. 30, 2024.

(Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Im)

Hurricane Helene made landfall in the middle of the night on Sept. 26 as a Category 4 storm, causing historic flooding far inland and killing at least 250 people. Western North Carolina was particularly hard hit. Flood waters swept away small towns and cut off others, while Asheville lost water for more than a month. Almost immediately, FEMA staff had to confront false rumors circulating online, including that it had stopped accepting housing assistance applications from survivors and didn’t have enough funds to help them.

FEMA officials and experts attribute the quick spread of disinformation to historic government mistrust in the area, as well as social media platforms ratcheting back moderation. High-profile figures including X owner Elon Musk and Trump, then in the late stages of his bid to retake the White House, repeated some of the false claims. Trump, for example, said multiple times during his campaign rallies FEMA was directing disaster funds to immigrants.

For example, the agency shared a screenshot taken from a TruthSocial post from Oct. 5 that stated: “Deanne Criswell needs to be executed for crimes against humanity and treason!” An Oct. 6 post on Gab, a social media site favored by the far right, called for the “Mussolini treatment” of various officials. “The only question: Is there enough rope?” read one of the responses.

Jacyln Rothenberg, the agency’s spokesperson at the time, was among the most heavily targeted, leading Homeland Security to loan Customs and Border Protection agents to provide security at her home. “Because the doxxing was so severe and my safety was at risk, I had to stop tweeting,” she said. “I had to stop doing interviews. I had to stop putting myself on the record.”

FEMA staff also found what it called “far-right” users posting possible personal information for numerous officials, including Criswell, Coen and Rothenberg, internal documents show.

Attacks on FEMA Offline

As a second powerful hurricane — Milton — developed off the coast of Florida, the attacks on staffers’ started migrating from the internet to their homes. After Criswell’s rental property was swatted, among other “serious threats,” then-DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas signed off on a government vehicle and extra security to protect the embattled FEMA chief.

Then it happened to someone else. “My deputy Jenna Peters’ home was swatted,” Coen told FEMA’s security team in an email on Oct. 11. Peters did not respond to a request for comment.

The most high-profile incident involved a man allegedly “hunting” FEMA staff in North Carolina’s disaster zone. On Criswell’s orders, she said in an email to other top Biden officials: “All FEMA staff and contractors working to interact with survivors and conducting housing inspections, as well as search and rescue teams stood down following the initial reports.”

Elena Gonzalez, 37, looks at their burned-out home after Hurricane Milton’s landfall on October 14, 2024, in Fort Myers, Florida.

(Eva Marie Uzcategui/The Washington Post via Getty Im)

Afterwards, FEMA put together a Workplace Protection Task Force involving security, intelligence and communications professionals to manage incoming threats. Protective measures included using specialized software to flag personnel previously targeted online as at risk of more harassment. But there were limits to how far the government could influence content moderation. At the time, outspoken Republicans led by House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan were investigating tech companies, alleging that the platforms were censoring conservative viewpoints under federal government pressure.

After initially approving ZeroFox to assist with facilitating takedowns, FEMA later asked that the company end all social media content removal requests. Per internal documents, the move came after staff discussions that it wasn’t advisable for the agency to contract for services that took any action beyond passive threat monitoring. ZeroFox declined to comment.

Supporters of 2024 Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump attend a boat parade near a house damaged in Hurricane Milton, Siesta Key, Florida, October 26, 2024.

(Chandan Khanna/AFP via Getty Images)

Trump’s team has already overseen a massive scale back of FEMA’s staffing, funding and programming. As part of a review of contracts, FEMA ended its agreement with ZeroFox, according to a former official familiar with the situation. A FEMA spokesperson confirmed that it ended the ZeroFox contract in April. For Melissa Ryan, founder of Card Strategies, a consulting firm that researches disinformation, the current political climate — in which public officials who attempt to provide transparency are often politicized and attacked — is a bigger obstacle than budget cuts in the fight against false claims. “So many of the new government appointees are Trump loyalists, and attempting to actually respond effectively to disinformation would make whoever made the attempt a target for MAGA and the administration,” she said.

Hirji, Alba and Leopold write for Bloomberg.

Alan Bergman, the decorated lyricist who over the course of seven decades penned songs including “The Windmills of Your Mind,” “The Way We Were,” and “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers” with wife Marilyn Bergman, has died. He was 99.

Bergman died late Thursday evening in his home in Los Angeles, family spokesperson Ken Sunshine confirmed in a statement to The Times on Friday. The songwriter “suffered from respiratory issues” in recent months but remained steadfast in his songwriting “till the very end.”

A Brooklyn native, Bergman was best known for his collaborations with his wife, Marilyn, which spanned music, television and film. The husband and wife, after meeting through composer Lew Spence, married in 1958. Together, they penned music for a variety of high-profile acts including Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles, Quincy Jones, John Williams and Barbra Streisand, with the last eventually becoming the couple’s muse.

The Bergmans were three-time Oscar winners. The couple won their first Oscar in 1969 for the moody “Windmills of Your Mind,” featured in “The Thomas Crown Affair,” shared with French composer Michel Legrand. Their second and third Oscar wins stemmed from works with Streisand: the title song from “The Way We Were” in 1974 (shared with Marvin Hamlisch) and in 1984 for the score of “Yentl,” shared with Legrand.

The composers and their work were consistent contenders at the Oscars, with their contributions to films “The Happy Ending,” “Tootsie,” “Yes, Giorgio” and the 1995 remake of Billy Wilder‘s “Sabrina” also receiving nominations from the academy. On the small screen, the Bergmans left their personal touch on numerous TV series from the 1970s to the 1990s, providing the theme music for shows including “Good Times,” “Alice,” “In the Heat of the Night” and Norman Lear’s “Maude.”

In addition to Oscars, the Bergmans also won four Emmys, two Golden Globes and two Grammys, including the song of the year award for “The Way We Were.”

Oscar-winning songwriters Alan and Marilyn Bergman at their home in 2008.

(Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times)

Alan Bergman, born Sept. 11, 1925 in Brooklyn, was a son of a salesman and knew from an early age that songwriting was his passion. He graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and pursued his graduate studies in music at UCLA. He briefly worked as a television director for Philadelphia station WCAU-TV but returned to Los Angeles to fully pursue songwriting, at the behest of mentor Johnny Mercer.

Alan and Marilyn Bergman are members of the Songwriters Hall of Fame, which awarded the duo its Johnny Mercer Award in 1997. They also received the Grammy Trustee Award for lifetime achievement, the National Academy of Songwriters Lifetime Achievement Award, the National Music Publishers Assn. Lifetime Achievement Award and honorary doctorates from Berklee College of Music and the University of Massachusetts. In 2011, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill honored Bergman with a distinguished alumnus award.

Marilyn Bergman died in January 2022 of respiratory failure at 93. After her death, Alan continued working, most recently collaborating with jazz guitarist Pat Metheny, who will record his nine songs co-written with Bergman later this year for an upcoming album.

Alan Bergman is survived by his daughter Julie Bergman and granddaughter Emily Sender. He will be laid to rest at a private graveside burial. Ruth Price’s Jazz Bakery announced earlier this month it would celebrate Bergman’s 100th birthday with a tribute concert at Santa Monica’s Broad Stage in September. The performance will go on as planned, The Times has learned.

The family ask that donations be made in Bergman’s name to the ASCAP Foundation Alan and Marilyn Bergman Lyric Award and the Johnny Mercer Foundation.

Times pop music critic Mikael Wood contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — By a single, tiebreaking vote, Senate Republicans on Tuesday approved President Trump’s signature legislation despite several GOP defections, a major step toward passage of a bill that would expand tax cuts while cutting healthcare access to millions.

Just 50 Republicans supported the legislation, forcing Vice President JD Vance to cast the tiebreaking vote.

GOP Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky, Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Susan Collins of Maine joined all Democrats in the chamber in opposition to the bill.

The legislation, called the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” passed with the support of a key skeptic of its most controversial provisions: Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. The bill extends tax cuts and benefits first passed in 2017 under Trump that were set to expire later this year, while creating new eligibility requirements for Medicaid and food stamps.

The House of Representatives will now have a second vote on a reconciled version of the bill. Should it pass, it will go to the president’s desk for his signature.

WASHINGTON — Two-term Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina said Sunday that he will not seek reelection next year, an abrupt announcement that came one day after he staked out his opposition to President Trump’s tax and spending package because of its reductions to healthcare programs.

His decision creates a political opportunity for Democrats seeking to bolster their numbers in the 2026 midterm elections, creating a wide-open Senate race in a state that has long been a contested battleground. It could also make Tillis a wild card in a party where few lawmakers are willing to risk Trump’s retribution by opposing his agenda or actions. Trump had already been threatening him with a primary challenge.

“In Washington over the last few years, it’s become increasingly evident that leaders who are willing to embrace bipartisanship, compromise, and demonstrate independent thinking are becoming an endangered species,” Tillis said in a lengthy statement Sunday.

Tillis, who would have been up for a third term in 2026, said he was proud of his career in public service but acknowledged the difficult political environment for those who buck their party and go it alone.

“I look forward to having the pure freedom to call the balls and strikes as I see fit and representing the great people of North Carolina to the best of my ability,” Tillis said in a statement.

Republicans hold a 53-47 edge in the Senate.

Trump, in social media posts, had berated Tillis for being one of two Republican senators who voted Saturday night against advancing the massive bill.

The Republican president accused Tillis of seeking publicity with his “no” vote and threatened to campaign against him next year. Trump also accused Tillis of doing nothing to help his constituents after last year’s devastating floods.

“Tillis is a talker and complainer, NOT A DOER,” Trump wrote.

The North Carolina Republican Party chairman, Jason Simmons, said the party wishes Tillis well and “will hold this seat for Republicans in 2026.”

Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, the chairman of the campaign arm for Senate Republicans, did not mention Tillis in a statement but said the party’s winning streak in North Carolina will continue. Scott noted that Trump won the state three times.

Democrats expressed confidence about their prospects.

Former Rep. Wiley Nickel, who announced his candidacy for the Senate seat in April, said he was ready for any Republican challenger.

“I’ve flipped a tough seat before and we’re going to do it again,” Nickel said in a statement.

Some said Tillis’ decision is another sign of the dramatic transformation of the Republican Party under Trump, with few lawmakers critical of the president or his agenda remaining in office.

It “proves there is no space within the Republican Party to dissent over taking healthcare away from 11.8 million people,” said Lauren French, spokesperson for the Senate Majority PAC, a political committee aligned with the chamber’s Democratic members.

Tillis rose to prominence in North Carolina when, as a second-term state House member, he quit his IBM consultant job and led the GOP’s recruitment and fundraising efforts in the chamber for the 2010 elections. Republicans won majorities in the House and Senate for the first time in 140 years.

Tillis was later elected as state House speaker and helped enact conservative policies on taxes, gun rights, regulations and abortion while serving in the role for four years. He also helped push a state constitutional referendum to ban same-sex marriage, which was approved by voters in 2012 but was ultimately struck down by the courts as unconstitutional.

In 2014, Tillis helped flip control of the U.S. Senate to the GOP after narrowly defeating Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan. During his more than a decade in office, he championed issues such as mental health and substance abuse recovery, Medicaid expansion and support for veterans.

As a more moderate Republican, Tillis became known for his willingness to work across the aisle on some issues. That got him into trouble with his party at times, notably in 2023 when North Carolina Republicans voted to censure him over several matters, including his challenges to certain immigration policies and his gun policy record.

“Sometimes those bipartisan initiatives got me into trouble with my own party,” Tillis said in his statement Sunday, “but I wouldn’t have changed a single one.”

Swenson writes for the Associated Press. AP writers Lisa Mascaro and Joey Cappelletti in Washington and Makiya Seminera in Raleigh, N.C., contributed to this report.

This year’s presidential race will be won or lost in a handful of states that have swung between Democrats and Republicans over the years. Here’s our guide to the battlegrounds and how their political landscapes could hand them to either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump.

For each state we’ve included the estimated percentage of the electorate that is white (a group that favors Trump overall), the percentage of white college-educated voters (a subset typically won by Republicans but now leaning toward Clinton) and the results in 2008 and 2012. The figures come from the Cook Political Report.

Florida is where close presidential contests are won or lost, sometimes by razor-thin margins. (See: Bush vs. Gore and the hanging chad).

There are signs that Clinton is positioned to edge out a victory here. For starters, the state’s significant Latino population is changing — there are more Puerto Ricans, who often lean Democratic, and fewer Cuban Americans, who are more reliable Republican voters.

Could Trump still win here? The part-time Floridian, whose Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach has been the site of numerous campaign events, needs turnout among black and Latino voters to lag behind previous elections.

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Ohio has a well-earned reputation as a political bellwether — it’s voted for the winner in every presidential contest except one since 1944.

But this year could be different. First, the state’s population is less representative of the nation than before, becoming older and whiter as the rest of the country diversifies. That should be a boost for Trump.

However, he’s been unable to unify the state’s Republican Party around his candidacy, and not even the state’s popular governor, John Kasich, voted for him. 

North Carolina tends to be out of Democrats’ reach in presidential elections — Obama won, barely, in 2008, then lost in 2012. But Clinton seems intent on turning the state blue with the help of high-profile supporters such as President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama. 

A major issue has been protests in Charlotte after police fatally shot a black man, pulling the city into a nationwide debate over race and criminal justice. It’s possible the political ripples could benefit Clinton, who has pushed for policing reforms and is counting on strong support from black voters.

 As one of the whitest states in the country, Iowa is fertile terrain for Trump, who has struggled with black, Latino and Asian voters. He could also benefit from a united Republican front that has eluded him in some other battlegrounds.

Clinton doesn’t have a strong track record in the state. She lost the state’s first-in-the-nation caucuses in 2008 when she ran against Obama, then narrowly edged out Bernie Sanders this year.

Pennsylvania has been a blue state for more than two decades,but there were concerns among Democrats that Trump could boost his numbers with white, working-class voters.

That doesn’t seem to have materialized, and Clinton has maintained a strong base of support among black voters in places such as Philadelphia. The city is such a Democratic bastion that Mitt Romney didn’t earn a single vote in 59 precincts in 2012.

In addition, Clinton’s campaign has set its sights on the Philadelphia suburbs, where Republicans are usually more competitive but Trump has struggled.

It wasn’t long ago that Democrats were ready to write off Colorado.  But the state has been rapidly transformed by an influx of Latinos and young, highly educated transplants — demographics that make it a much safer bet for Clinton.

Also hurting Trump is his low support among women disgusted with his sexist remarks. Even though he may be able count on support from conservative strongholds such as Colorado Springs, the growing suburbs around Denver could be slipping out of Republicans’ reach.

Trump’s name already looms over Las Vegas from the candidate’s hotel, but winning the state is another matter. Nevada is home to an increasing number of Latinos who have been turned off by Trump’s hard-line immigration stance and his derogatory comments about Mexicans and other immigrants.

The Clinton campaign has invested heavily in a state organization to balance out the enthusiasm among Trump supporters. Voters here have a strong anti-establishment streak, something the New York businessman and first-time candidate could turn to his advantage.

Democrats have regarded Georgia like a big, fat, juicy peach, just waiting to ripen and fall. Their expectation has been the increased clout of the state’s growing black, Latino and Asian populations would turn this reddest of states blue sometime over the next decade or so.

Some hope that day could come this year if Trump repels enough minority and women voters. However, it’s less than an even-money bet for Clinton. 

Donald Trump’s steady slide in the polls has made this normally Republican state vulnerable to turning blue this year. He’s lost the support of Sen. John McCain, and he was never endorsed by the state’s other senator, Jeff Flake.

Hillary Clinton’s campaign is trying to take advantage of a rare opportunity, with appearances by First Lady Michelle Obama, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and the candidate herself. A Democratic victory would likely rely heavily on Arizona’s growing number of Latinos, who have heavily favored Clinton over Trump.

[email protected]

Twitter: @chrismegerian

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Brianna Pinto scored just seven minutes after entering off the bench for the North Carolina Courage in a 2-1 win against Angel City on Saturday.

The Courage (4-5-3) had lost all three of their previous visits to BMO Stadium.

Cortnee Vine had made it 1-0 in the first minute of the game when she slid the ball into the net from a cross by Manaka Matsukubo.

Riley Tiernan scored her seventh goal of the season to bring Angel City (4-5-3) level at 1-1 in the 11th minute, heading in a cross from Gisele Thompson.

The winner came from a scramble in the box in the fifth minute of stoppage time. After Angel City defender Miyabi Moriya blocked a shot on the line, Pinto scooped up the ball and fired it in from five yards out.

STUDENTS in the South of England are nearly twice as likely to get three A* A-level grades than those in the North, data reveals.

Just 5,800 of the 258,000 who sat the exams last year came away with three or more top grades.

Of those, 3,779 were from the South and 2,021 in the North.

Nine out of ten of the best areas for A-levels were in the South. Pupils in reading, in Berks, came out top — with seven per cent hitting the highest grades.

Dozens in London suburbs Kingston, Newham, Sutton and Barnet also got top marks.

The Government stats show Salford, Gtr Manchester, fared the worst, with a single set of three A* grades.

Social mobility expert Professor Lee Elliot Major called it a national scandal, saying: “These figures lay bare a brutal truth — your chances of the highest academic success at school are still shaped more by where you live than what you’re capable of.

“This A-star divide highlights the vast differences in support offered to today’s children and young people both outside and inside the classroom.

“Increasingly A-level grades are as much a sign of how much support young people have had as much as their academic capability.

“This isn’t just a North-South education divide. It’s a London and South East versus the rest Divide.”

The Department for Education said: “We are taking measures to tackle baked-in inequalities.”

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