Weekly Wrap: End of (campaign) days

Early voting wraps up Saturday afternoon, and North Carolina is on pace to top the 2.7 million votes cast during early voting in 2012.

But, as the campaign rages on in the final days, North Carolina has been besieged by presidential candidates and their surrogates. President Barack Obama made three stops in the state this week on behalf of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, while Clinton and Trump each held two rallies and their running mates, Democrat Tim Kaine and Republican Mike Pence, also crisscrossed the state.

In federal court, a separate battle is being waged over voter registrations. The NAACP sued the state after thousands of names were removed from the voter rolls based on citizen challenges that used undelivered mail to support their allegation that people were improperly registered to vote. The NAACP and several voters argue that such challenges not only don't give voters a chance to prove they are properly registered but that they violate federal law that protects voter registrations within 90 days of an election.

On a sad note, longtime Rep. Paul Luebke, D-Durham, lost his battle to lymphoma and died last weekend.