— Hundreds of people packed the entrance of Hillside High School in Durham on Sunday to hear presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden speak.

Biden said coming to Durham was important, calling the city a symbol of justice and opportunity. He spent 25 minutes speaking to the crowd and said winning North Carolina is a priority for him.

Some goals he touched on include boosting the funding for historically black colleges and universities and closing the poverty and wage gap in America. Biden also discussed the importance of security in the country. He said ISIS remains a threat, even though President Donald Trump announced the group's leader was dead after the U.S. raid in Syria.

The North Carolina Republican Party responded to the former vice president's visit Sunday, saying the country "cannot afford to go backwards with a Biden agenda that doesn't put America first."

"Over the last three years, President Trump has fought every day to unleash the American economy with his America First agenda, and the results have been remarkable," the state GOP said in a statement.

Biden has spent a lot of time in South Carolina for the state's key early primary in late February, but North Carolina's primary is just three days later. Biden held a fundraiser in August in Charlotte. He trails top primary rivals, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts in total fundraising and cash on hand.

Former President Barack Obama and Biden won North Carolina's 15 electoral votes in 2008, marking the first and only time since 1976 that the Democratic ticket has been victorious in the state.