President Obama visits NC with focus on jobs

North Carolina is poised to be a battleground state again in the 2012 election, and President Barack Obama knows it.

Obama carried North Carolina by less than 15,000 votes in 2008, becoming the first Democratic presidential candidate since 1976 to earn all of the electoral votes from the traditionally red state. In a speech at Cree Inc. in Durham on Monday, Obama admitted some things have changed since his previous visit to the LED lighting plant on the campaign trail in 2008.

“It’s true, I have a lot more gray hair now then the last time I visited,” he said. “But I have a better plan. So I’d say it’s a fair trade.”

But other key economic indicators have not changed as much as Obama would have liked. The national unemployment rate remains stubbornly high at 9.1 percent, and only 54,000 jobs were added in May — the lowest tally since January.

Obama met with his Council on Jobs and Competitiveness before his remarks at Cree to discuss measures to improve job creation through partnerships between private companies, community colleges and universities.

One such collaborative effort between private companies and universities would offer incentives and funding for 10,000 engineering students every year to complete their degrees, he said.

U.S. Rep. David Price, D-N.C., said at the event in Durham that it’s also important to highlight the role of public investment in university research and its creation of spin-off companies like Cree, which was founded by a group of N.C. State University engineering students in 1987.

“We didn’t get where we are here in the Triangle by being overly dependent on government,” he said. “But neither did we get here by demonizing government.”

Obama’s focus on a direct link between college training programs and skilled jobs in the manufacturing sector also suggests efforts to maintain appeal among youthful voters that he effectively mobilized in 2008.

A recent poll by Public Policy Polling, a Democratic polling company in Raleigh, found that Obama’s approval rating among voters below the age of 30 in the state is 76 percent.

Dustin Ingalls, assistant to the director of Public Policy Polling, said the youth vote could have an even larger impact in 2012 because of the evolving nature of the state’s population.

“The electorate itself is changing as more young people are moving into the state,” he said. “Then you will have a new crop of people who are 18 to 22, and they will likely be voting with the president as well.”

But the state’s economic woes — including the nation’s 10th highest unemployment rate of 9.7 percent — will also impact the election in 2012.

Ingalls said the presidential race in North Carolina might even be closer than other traditional swing states such as Ohio and Pennsylvania, especially with the Democratic National Convention being held in Charlotte next year.

“North Carolina will join Virginia, Nevada and Colorado as former red states that will be part of the group of swing states crucial to the election,” he said.

Contact the State & National Editor at state@dailytarheel.com.