Bernie Sanders returned to the campaign trail for Hillary Clinton as Donald Trump gained ground in the key swing state

Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton campaigned head to head in North Carolina on Thursday, holding competing rallies only 30 miles apart in a state where polls show the Republican gaining on the Democrat five days before the presidential election.

North Carolina has a large and growing African American population and a growing number of young, white and college-educated voters, which means it has long figured in Clinton’s plan to win states where Barack Obama lost in 2012. On Thursday evening she tried to appeal to those voters in Raleigh, alongside her former rival, Bernie Sanders, and the singer Pharrell Williams.

The trio appeared before a raucous crowd of about 5,200 people at an outdoor amphitheater, where Sanders drew an especially strong response from the largely young crowd, who broke into chants of “Bernie”.

The Democratic nominee largely let her surrogates argue for her, underscoring the Vermont senator’s continued popularity among a demographic with which Clinton has struggled.

“This is not a personality contest,” Sanders implored voters. “We’re not voting for high school president. We’re voting for the most powerful leader in the world.”

Sanders told the crowd that Trump represented an unacceptable option, and that the “cornerstone” of his campaign was bigotry.

“We are not going back to a bigoted society,” Sanders said. “We’re not going to allow Trump or anyone else to divide us up.”



The senator’s remarks returned to familiar themes from his former stump speech, from addressing income inequality to reducing the amount of money in politics, in a bid to persuade supporters to cast their ballots for Clinton if they wished to see his agenda realized.

In contrast, Trump held an outdoor rally in the rural town of Selma in front of a crowd estimated at 17,000.

The Republican nominee, continuing to appeal to white conservative voters, emphasized his push for a more isolationist foreign policy in a state with a heavy military presence.

Trump vowed that he would only “engage in use of military forces when it is vital for national security interests of United States”, repeating his calls to avoid interventions abroad and to cooperate with regimes such as that of Vladimir Putin’s in Russia.

“We will stop trying to build foreign democracies, topple regimes and act recklessly to intervene in situations where we have no right to be there, folks,” he said, backed by a lineup of veterans, many who wore camouflage “Make America Great Again” hats. Trump, who avoided service in the Vietnam war on student and medical deferments, called the veterans “so much more brave than me”.

“I’m brave in other ways. I am financially brave,” he added.

The stops were the second North Carolina events in a day for both candidates, who are tied in the polls there according to averages.

Barack Obama stumped in the state on Wednesday for Clinton, and last week Clinton marked her first joint campaign appearance with first lady Michelle Obama in Winston-Salem. Trump is scheduled to make two more stops in North Carolina before the election, and running mate Mike Pence is scheduled to appear as well.

In Raleigh, Clinton told voters that the fabric of US society was at stake in the election. “Come January 20, America will have a new president. It will either be me or my opponent,” she said.



“The question is what kind of change are we going to see? Are we going to build a stronger, fairer, better America or are we going to fear each other and fear our future?”

Noting the disparaging comments Trump has made about women, disabled people, African Americans, Latinos and Muslims, Clinton borrowed a quote from the first lady: “The presidency doesn’t change who you are, it reveals who you are.”

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“I think it’s fair to say that my opponent has already revealed who he is,” she added.



Trump meanwhile accused the Justice Department of interference in investigations into Clinton’s use of a private email server as secretary of state, adding yet another complaint of wrongdoing in the continuing controversy. The FBI, which began a new review of emails last week, has been riven by leaks and infighting since director James Comey sent a letter to Congress notifying them that additional emails that may be pertinent had been found. Democrats and Republicans expressed surprise and confusion at his letter for its timing, and some Democrats accused the bureau of seeking to interfere with the election.

Outside Charlotte, Trump alleged that Clinton had “engaged in far reaching criminal conduct and equally far reaching criminal cover up”, although Comey’s July conclusion was that she had not committed intentional or criminal wrongdoing. Trump then later stated that she had committed “perjury”.

The political fallout from Comey’s letter appears to have helped Trump consolidate Republican voters and narrow the gap with Clinton, who had long held a steady lead over him. However, the Republican nominee still trails in crucial swing states like Pennsylvania and Nevada and faces a difficult electoral map.