Mark Barrett

mbarrett@citizen-times.com

ASHEVILLE – Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Kaine and his wife, Anne Holton, will visit the area Monday to tout running mate Hillary Clinton's jobs plan, the Clinton campaign says.

Details including the venue and timing of the visit are still being worked out. Kaine is a U.S. senator from Virginia and a former governor of the state. He is scheduled to campaign Tuesday in Fayetteville.

Kaine, Clinton, Donald Trump and his running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, have all come to North Carolina this summer, reflecting the closeness of the presidential race in the state and the importance of North Carolina's 15 electoral college votes.

Trump held rallies Tuesday in Fayetteville and Wilmington. Last week, Kaine visited Greensboro and Pence held a town hall meeting in Raleigh. President Barack Obama's first campaign appearance with Clinton was July 5 in Charlotte.

A new poll conducted by Public Policy Polling, a Raleigh-based firm that typically works for Democrats, says Clinton leads Trump in North Carolina 43 percent to 41 percent. Interviews were conducted Aug. 5 through Sunday. PPP said that was the first time since March its polling had shown Clinton in the lead.

A poll released last week by Civitas Institute, a conservative think tank based in Raleigh, said Trump had 46 percent to Clinton's 42 percent, based on interviews conducted July 31 through Aug. 2.

Results from both polls were within their margins of error – 3.4 percent for the PPP poll, 5 percent for the Civitas poll – meaning the race can be considered a statistical dead heat.

Obama won North Carolina in 2008 by a little more than 14,000 votes out of 4.3 million cast in 2008, then Mitt Romney put it in the Republican column in 2012 with 50.4 percent of the vote to Obama's 48.4 percent in 2012.

Clinton's campaign in the state says it will open 18 "coordinated campaign" offices Thursday and Friday to support her and other Democratic candidates.

That includes an Asheville office at 70 Woodfin Place, Suite 17. Mayor Esther Manheimer is scheduled to appear at an official opening there at 6:30 p.m. Thursday.

Clinton's jobs plan includes a call for allowing students to graduate from college debt-free, a 4 percent additional income tax on annual income greater than $5 million, promotion of clean energy sources and what her campaign calls the largest increase in infrastructure investment since the start of the Interstate highway system.

Kaine and Holton will be campaigning at Arthur R. Edington Education & Career Center, 133 Livingston St. Doors open at 4:30 p.m.