raleigh, n.c. <u+2014> with three excruciatingly close races for president, governor and united states senate after four years of pitched political battles, it is not as if north carolina needed much more to concoct enticing story lines this election year. but the plot turns have kept coming: boycotts. protests. riots. the firebombing of a local republican headquarters. a hurricane that inundated a vast eastern section of the state this month, one that may serve to buoy the political life of gov. pat mccrory, a republican. there may be no other state with as much to sort through <u+2014> or as much at stake this year <u+2014> as north carolina. hillary clinton and donald j. trump are in a tight battle here, one of the most contested swing states. the governor<u+2019>s race between mr. mccrory and his democratic challenger, attorney general roy cooper, may be the closest in the country, as well as being a sort of referendum on the state<u+2019>s sharp right turn in recent years. and control of the united states senate could be determined by an equally close race here between richard burr, an incumbent republican, and his democratic challenger, deborah ross. the presence of the mercurial mr. trump atop the republican ticket is only one of many narrative wild cards in a state where democrats and republicans are evenly matched, and where handicapping statewide races is a challenge even in a normal year. <u+201c>it has truly been a bizarre experience, to the point where i<u+2019>m not making any predictions anymore, and generally i<u+2019>m somebody who looks at the data, sees trends, sees patterns,<u+201d> said j. michael bitzer, a political scientist at catawba college in salisbury, n.c. <u+201c>and what i have seen since the beginning of 2016, if not earlier, has basically been a coin toss, at all levels. it<u+2019>s just astounding to me how bitterly divided this state is becoming, and has become.<u+2019><u+2019> what might tip the balance is anyone<u+2019>s guess. and the yawning uncertainty is magnified by the fact that many voters here, as in much of the rest of the nation, seem full of passionate intensity <u+2014> while others are just not that into their marquee candidates. at lunchtime on thursday, the first day of early voting here, fred ames, 73, was standing in a line of more than 120 voters waiting to cast ballots. his t-shirt had a picture of mr. mccrory and the words <u+201c>human garbage.<u+201d> he faulted the governor, who earned a reputation as a moderate in his 14 years as mayor of charlotte, for failing to stand up to the more conservative republicans in the legislature. <u+201c>essentially,<u+201d> mr. ames said, <u+201c>he has no backbone.<u+201d> the night before, alan riley, 57, a cigarette company worker from timberlake, n.c., was among a pool of north carolina state fair visitors checking out the pro-trump and anti-clinton merchandise at a booth sponsored by the wake county republican party . mr. riley said he thought mr. mccrory had done just fine in his first term. and while he was voting for mr. trump for president, he said it was really a vote against mrs. clinton. <u+201c>a lot of times, people don<u+2019>t know what he<u+2019>s thinking,<u+201d> mr. riley said. <u+201c>a lot of times he<u+2019>s not thinking.<u+201d> mr. trump has garnered the support of mr. mccrory and mr. burr, and democrats have relentlessly attacked the republican incumbents for sticking by him. it is all part of the turnout game, and a hope, among democrats here, that moderate republicans will be so repelled by mr. trump that they sit the election out. at the same time, democrats are hoping to reap some advantage from the federal appeals court ruling in july that restored a full 17 days of early voting in the state, along with other generous ballot-access provisions that had been eliminated by republican legislators in 2013. turnout is also a chief concern among republicans. last week, a couple of big rectangular lapel pins could be found on the desk of dallas woodhouse, the executive director of the state republican party. they proclaimed, <u+201c>republicans who stay at home elect democrats.<u+201d> mr. woodhouse, a garrulous, gravel-voiced man, propped a pair of black cowboy boots on the desk, radiating nonchalance. whether it was feigned was anybody<u+2019>s guess. <u+201c>mr. trump has glommed on to some issues that are very important,<u+201d> he said. <u+201c>he<u+2019>s also viewed uniquely, by voters, as donald trump. that means if you like him, you don<u+2019>t necessarily like every republican. and if you dislike him, you don<u+2019>t necessarily like every democrat. whether that<u+2019>s good or bad, i don<u+2019>t know the answer to that yet.<u+201d> mr. mccrory seemed annoyed when asked, after his third debate with mr. cooper last week, what effect mr. trump might have on the governor<u+2019>s re-election prospects. <u+201c>i don<u+2019>t know,<u+201d> mr. mccrory said. <u+201c>i have no idea. if you know, let me know, will you? i have no idea.<u+201d> the season of trump seems to be a poor match for mr. burr. he is the epitome of an establishment republican officeholder, after two decades in the house and the senate, in what is an anti-establishment election for many republican voters. many in washington also view mr. burr, 60, as what mr. trump would call a <u+201c>low-energy<u+201d> politician, a glad-handing, golf-playing insider whose main congressional role <u+2014> chairman of the senate intelligence committee <u+2014> is not one that garners much appreciation in his home state. ms. ross, 53, who most recently served as in-house counsel for the regional transit authority here in the liberal research triangle, has managed to outhustle mr. burr in fund-raising throughout the year. this is despite outside republican groups<u+2019> coming to mr. burr<u+2019>s aid; the senate leadership fund, run by allies of senator mitch mcconnell of kentucky, the republican majority leader, has committed $9 million. but in a thematic inversion of the presidential race, ms. ross has taken out ads that are almost trumpian in their criticism of mr. burr as the consummate washington insider, while mr. burr has accused his democratic opponent for being lax on sensitive issues of sexual assault. his campaign<u+2019>s television ads say that ms. ross, a former state director of the american civil liberties union, opposed the creation of the north carolina sex offender registry when she was in the state legislature. (ms. ross fought back with an ad featuring the sponsor of the registry bill, who said that she had actually <u+201c>worked to make it stronger.<u+201d>) there is a similar inversion in the governor<u+2019>s race: mr. mccrory can sound like many national democrats when he argues that north carolina has rebounded from the recession in the last four years, with a growing economy and plummeting unemployment. mr. cooper, the attorney general since 2001, can sound much like mr. trump when he argues that many working- and middle-class people have not benefited from the recovery. mr. mccrory has taken a raw political beating this year over a law he signed in march that prohibits local governments from passing protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. the law, known as house bill 2 or hb2, also requires that transgender people in government buildings use the restrooms that correspond with their gender at birth. the backlash generated international headlines, as businesses canceled expansion plans and big sports leagues <u+2014> including the national basketball association, the national collegiate athletic association and the atlantic coast conference <u+2014> moved events elsewhere. late last week, leaders of the human rights campaign, a gay rights group in washington, were overseeing rooms full of phone-banking volunteers in raleigh and charlotte who urged people to vote for democrats. but at a crucial moment, hurricane matthew appears to have given mr. mccrory an opportunity to display his crisis-management skills on television. mr. woodhouse said that the governor might have also been given a boost by his responses to the protests and riots that followed the sept. 20 fatal police shooting of a black man, keith lamont scott, in charlotte, and the unsolved oct. 16 firebombing of the local republican headquarters in the town of hillsborough. at the state fair last week, the wake county republican party was doing a brisk business with its stickers and t-shirts. one of them read <u+201c>hillary for prison.<u+201d> a number of the patrons were wearing confederate battle flag stickers they had picked up at the sons of confederate veterans booth around the corner. sapphire scott, 19, an african-american, stood out among the largely white crowd. as it turned out, ms. scott is a supporter of mrs. clinton<u+2019>s. she had come to simply observe the scene <u+2014> <u+201c>just to see the craziness,<u+201d> she said <u+2014> and, like so many north carolinians this year, to wonder. jackie calmes contributed reporting from washington. a version of this article appears in print on october 26, 2016, on page a13 of the new york edition with the headline: <u+2018>a bizarre experience<u+2019> in north carolina<u+2019>s races. order reprints | today's paper | subscribe
protests and storms make north carolina<u+2019>s election year <u+2018>a bizarre experience<u+2019>
richard fausset