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Will Candidates Care About Robeson County Next Year?

Three Black women in front of a brick house with a wooden ramp in front.
Ben McKeown
/
WUNC

South of Fayetteville along I-95 is North Carolina’s outlier county. It is one of the most diverse and poorest of the hundred. But, like the state as a whole, Robeson County is contested in the 2020 elections.

 

President Trump made a stop through the county on Saturday, Oct. 24, countering the Biden campaign’s push in the toss-up county. Both presidential candidates — as well as the congressional candidates for the 9th district — now promise federal recognition for the Lumbee Tribe.Chairman Harvey Godwin, elected leader of the state-recognized tribe, said he believes competitive political attention is a boon for tribal members. Yet other issues dominate Robeson politics, with Second Amendment rights and agriculture prioritized in many local candidates’ platforms. Affected by Hurricanes Matthew and Florence, voters are still seeking out politicians who can help neighborhoods rebuild. WUNC digital news producer Laura Pellicer heard from Robeson County residents about their priorities. Pellicer shares those local insights with host Frank Stasio.
 

Credit NC Government
A topographic map of Lumberton. Predominantly white neighborhoods are mostly on the Northern and Eastern side of the river, above flooding levels.

See more pictures and interviews from Pellicer's reporting in Lumberton

Grant Holub-Moorman coordinates events and North Carolina outreach for WUNC, including a monthly trivia night. He is a founding member of Embodied and a former producer for The State of Things.
Longtime NPR correspondent Frank Stasio was named permanent host of The State of Things in June 2006. A native of Buffalo, Frank has been in radio since the age of 19. He began his public radio career at WOI in Ames, Iowa, where he was a magazine show anchor and the station's News Director.
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