Can Democrats bounce back in North Carolina after 2023 'gut punch'?

Democrats are trying again to reel in their white whale of North Carolina this November after years of losses culminated in Republicans clinching a historically strong position to end 2023.

The GOP dealt Democrats a body blow last year when a new legislative supermajority, secured after the defection of a liberal state lawmaker, bulldozed through Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper's veto and passed a 12-week abortion ban, gerrymandered legislative maps and enacted other conservative bills on education and transgender rights. Democrats, stuck in a deep minority, watched from the political sidelines.

Now, Democrats are looking to punch back, help President Joe Biden flip the state for his reelection bid and retain the open governorship, insisting their 2023 setbacks ignited new resolve to get off the mat.

"It was a gut punch, but it was a wake-up call," said Gary Pearce, a past adviser to former Democratic Gov. Jim Hunt. "I think it made a lot of people mad."

To be certain, the hype is not new for the state's Democrats, who include 2.4 million registered voters compared to Republicans' 2.2 million. Another 2.7 million voters are registered as unaffiliated.

The party for years has crowed of its chances to make gains in narrowly divided North Carolina only to fall short. Democrats have not won a presidential or U.S. Senate race there since 2008, and their state legislative presence has atrophied. The state's new congressional lines are expected to leave Democrats holding four out of 14 U.S. House districts at best.

But, Democrats boast, this year is different.

A slate of hard-liners expected to top the ticket for Republicans risks energizing Democrats and alienating swing voters. New leadership atop the Democratic state party has led the charge to expand its presence outside urban and suburban enclaves. And Biden's campaign has indicated it views North Carolina as a key Electoral College expansion opportunity.

"If you're talking about the statewide dynamic, I think certainly Democrats have the capability and the opportunity to make North Carolina either again a very close Republican win or flip the state at the presidential level," said Michael Bitzer, a politics professor at Catawba College.

Several Democrats who spoke to ABC News highlighted the expected GOP ticket as presenting a unique opportunity to frame Republicans as out of step with purple North Carolina. Former President Donald Trump is the overwhelming favorite to win the GOP nomination, while Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson is the front-runner in the Republican gubernatorial primary, and Rep. Dan Bishop is expected to be the attorney general nominee.

Democrats say they can capitalize on the reputation of Trump -- who won North Carolina in 2016 and 2020 -- as a flamethrower, as well as Robinson's lengthy history of controversial statements. The lieutenant governor has said children shouldn’t learn about "homosexuality or any of that filth," denied the Holocaust as "a bunch of hogwash" and likened abortion to murder.

Bishop, a member of the House Freedom Caucus, helped spearhead in 2016 the controversial and now-dead state law that barred transgender people from using public bathrooms that aligned with their gender identity -- another stance Democrats say could lift their candidates.

Current Attorney General Josh Stein -- one of just a handful of Democrats to hold statewide office in North Carolina -- and Rep. Jeff Jackson are the favorites to be the Democratic nominees for governor and attorney general, respectively. Both have so far focused on their records and kitchen table issues.

"I usually identify 3% to 5% of the electorate that swings one way or the other. Is their rhetoric too far?" Bitzer asked. "And does that alienate that margin of error in the polls to determine the margin of victory?"

"If it's not this top of the ticket, what will energize Democrats?" he added. "I think that the way that it seems like things are playing out, Democrats certainly can flip this state by very thin margins. But it's going to take effort on their part and perhaps some luck given to them by Republicans."

The Robinson campaign swatted away such predictions, with spokesperson Michael Lonergan telling ABC News that Democrats are "terrified" and that Robinson "is building momentum and support across the state because he is focused on solutions to these issues that affect North Carolinians every day."

But even some Republicans have voiced concerns over the expected ticket.

"What you have to do in North Carolina is you have to find candidates who can not only appeal to the base but who can win unaffiliated voters," one North Carolina GOP strategist said. "[I]f Mark Robinson is the nominee for governor, and Dan Bishop is the nominee for attorney general, that's a bad recipe for winning an election in North Carolina."

Democrats are also expanding their campaign infrastructure.

The party didn't field candidates in 44 of 170 state legislative races in 2022, a strategic failure that Democrats said left them without messengers in rural parts of the state. This year, Democrats have candidates running in all but two of those races, an effort that new state party chair Anderson Clayton told ABC News could help candidates all the way up the ballot, even if many of those candidates lose.

"We know that those maps are racially gerrymandered. But we're still contesting those races. And we're doing it because we know that when we contest all of those races, we up voter turnout statewide," she said.

"North Carolina Democrats used to lose rural North Carolina 60-40, and now we lose it 80-20. We've got to correct those numbers," she added.

The Biden campaign is also forecasting a muscular presence on the ground, with spokesperson Kevin Munoz saying in a statement, "We fully expect North Carolina to be competitive and plan to run an aggressive and winning campaign that builds on our significant investments throughout the state."

Underscoring its interest in North Carolina, the Biden campaign included the state in its initial $25 million ad buy and tapped Cooper to serve as a member of the president's national advisory board, with more moves expected to come.

"I think there's been no question they're in it to play for real in North Carolina," said Morgan Jackson, a veteran North Carolina Democratic strategist who has worked with the Biden camp.

Still, no Democrat is predicting an easy road ahead.

The Biden campaign will have to balance investing in North Carolina with defending a string of purple states he won in 2020, all while suffering from low approval ratings fueled by dour opinions on the economy -- numbers Jackson conceded are "a challenge."

Some Democrats are already worrying that the Biden team isn't messaging effectively enough about the administration's wins.

"I think what Biden's campaign needs to do is to come back to all of these kitchen table positives that have happened and just keep hammering it in," said Kevyn Creech, the chair of the Wake County Democratic Party. "I don't think I've seen enough of it yet. I would like to see more."

And even if Democrats run flawless campaigns in North Carolina, their gains are likely to be limited.

The legislative and congressional lines make it virtually impossible for Democrats to do anything more than try to end Republicans supermajority -- rather than win a majority themselves -- and even keeping four House seats will be a struggle.

"Have you seen them?" Clayton said with a laugh when asked about how stiff the headwinds will be in those races. "I shouldn't laugh at it. I laugh because it's sad, and it's something that you have to laugh at, I think, to make yourself feel better about the situation that we have found ourselves in."