CHARLOTTE, N.C.—For Gov. Pat McCrory, a low point in his political career came when his hometown newspaper, The Charlotte Observer, declared the Republican had joined “a dark list of Southern governors” and the kind of men who “fed our worst impulses.”

McCrory’s condemned deed: He signed a bill requiring people in government buildings to use the bathroom corresponding with their birth sex. Private businesses may still set their own policies.

The GOP legislature passed the bill in March, after the Charlotte City Council approved an ordinance requiring all businesses in the city—including private ones—to allow people to use the bathroom corresponding to his or her perceived gender identity.

McCrory called the state’s response a commonsense protection. The Observer called it “a sprint past the bathroom door and straight to the South’s dark, bigoted past.” It was a virulent condemnation of an often-moderate politician.

“They compared me to George Wallace,” McCrory told a local radio host at the time. “Do you know how much that hurt?”

The pain was only beginning.

PayPal reversed plans to open headquarters in Charlotte. Deutsche Bank halted plans to add jobs in the state. More than 120 corporations condemned the law. Bruce Springsteen and Pearl Jam canceled concerts.

Since most corporations protesting the bill still make profits in North Carolina, and some conduct business in countries with atrocious human rights records, McCrory called the backlash “selective outrage—which means it’s probably well-coordinated.”

It’s not only well-coordinated—it’s also well-timed.

McCrory and U.S. Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., are both up for reelection in November, and McCrory’s race with his opponent, North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper, has remained tight.

Meanwhile, the state runs politically purple during national elections: North Carolina voters chose President Barack Obama in 2008 and Republican Mitt Romney in 2012. It was the only swing state Romney won.

This year, North Carolina is locked in a razor-thin contest between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. Voter turnout will be key for either candidate, and the state could be key for the win.

Clinton’s chief political strategist told The Washington Post that North Carolina is a “roadblock” state for Trump’s prospects in the electoral college: “If we win North Carolina, along with Virginia, where we are in very good shape, we choke off so many paths to 270 that he’s threading a needle that has a smaller eye than any previous political candidate.”

That may depend on other close swing states, and the contours of a wildly unpredictable election, but Kami Mueller, the state’s GOP spokeswoman, says both parties know North Carolina is a “mecca” for winning the election. And she says opponents of HB2, as the bathroom law is known, have leveraged that reality for national influence.

It’s an important dynamic to watch.

If the HB2 controversy helps tip North Carolina toward Clinton (or helps kill McCrory’s reelection bid), it could form a template for campaign strategists in a post-Obergefell political era: Exploit a sensitive social issue, enlist corporate heavyweights to threaten economic damage, and potentially influence the outcome of national elections.

IS THIS CONSPIRACY THEORY or calculated strategy?

At least this much is clear: Outside groups helped local activists conceive the controversy that birthed HB2. In February 2015, a group of Charlotte activists pressed the city to pass an anti-discrimination ordinance, but the measure failed. The nation’s largest gay advocacy group got involved.

The Washington, D.C.–based Human Rights Campaign (HRC) and other groups poured money into a local organization working to recruit candidates for the next City Council election, according to The New York Times. Last fall, three newly elected council members tipped the balance.

In February of this year, the measure passed, despite objections of small-business owners who said they wanted to set their own bathroom policies instead of the city mandating a change for everyone based on the preferences of a few.

The North Carolina legislature responded with a bill that included a provision allowing private businesses to set their own bathroom rules and requiring people in government buildings to use the restroom corresponding with their birth sex.

The backlash was swift: HRC produced a letter signed by leaders of 120 corporations, saying they opposed the bill. PayPal halted its jobs expansion into Charlotte, and the NCAA announced it would move seven sports championships from the state.

The Washington Post pronounced national shame: “Bigotry raises its hideous head in North Carolina.”

The charge was ironic. Before Charlotte passed its ordinance in February, the city had been known as a progressive metropolis full of large corporations with gay-friendly policies. The city ordinance seemed aimed at making a statement rather than solving a problem.

And McCrory had been known as a moderate. He served as mayor of Charlotte for 14 years and sometimes clashed with stauncher conservatives over tax hikes and funding for non-essential projects.

As governor since 2012, he’s supported the more conservative policies of a GOP state legislature, but he’s sometimes pushed back. Last year, McCrory vetoed a bill allowing civil magistrates to decline participation in gay weddings based on religious objections.

Republican legislators said the law would protect magistrates from making “an impossible choice between their core religious beliefs and their jobs.” McCrory—who noted he holds religious beliefs against gay marriage—said public officials must follow the laws of their nation and state, even if they have objections.

The North Carolina legislature overrode the governor’s veto, but LGBT advocates praised McCrory for his stance.

A few months later, those details didn’t matter. When McCrory signed HB2, he became a national target for charges of bigotry and hate, and the fury became a notable playing card in a high-stakes game for the White House.

ON A NATIONAL LEVEL, HRC HAD endorsed Clinton for the presidency in January. By this summer, a trove of leaked emails from the Democratic National Committee showed the Democratic Party sought to capitalize on the North Carolina controversy.

In one email exchange, a DNC staffer called McCrory a “moronic little bigot of a tarheel governor” and said Republicans were using bathrooms to “distract from their epic failings as human beings and party officials.” Another DNC official discussed producing “a decent hit piece on the pro-prejudice backwater of the NC state house.”

In another thread, a DNC staffer forwarded an email about the band Pearl Jam canceling a North Carolina concert and the potential $60,000 loss for Raleigh hotels. The email noted HB2 reportedly had cost the state 1,750 jobs and $77 million in lost economic activity.

An official responded: “This is great—can we forward to our LGBT and National lists.”

A DNC spokesman later said the party wanted to show HB2’s economic damage, not celebrate job losses. But Dallas Woodhouse, executive director of the North Carolina Republican Party, told a local news station: “They orchestrated it. They inflicted pain on the people of North Carolina and they celebrated it.”

The HB2-induced pain came at a time when North Carolina was making economic gains in a sluggish national economy. The state has lowered taxes, raised teacher pay, and achieved its lowest unemployment rate in nearly a decade. Last year, Forbes rated North Carolina the second-best state in the nation for business.

But the economic losses from HB2 over the last six months have overshadowed the economic progress in the state over the last four years. Now, in a tight race for governor, McCrory’s opponent, Attorney General Roy Cooper, has refused to defend HB2 against federal threats. (In 2014, Cooper refused to defend North Carolina’s amendment banning gay marriage a year before the U.S. Supreme Court forced all 50 states to recognize same-sex marriage.)

Meanwhile, the Human Rights Campaign continues its advocacy work in North Carolina. HRC President Chad Griffin denies McCrory’s claims that he told the governor, “We’re going after you.” But Griffin told The Charlotte Observer, “We told the governor that if he didn’t fix the disaster he created, that he alone would be responsible for tarnishing the reputation of the state and killing jobs.”

Thomas Stith, McCrory’s chief of staff, told the newspaper that Griffin said he would make North Carolina a battleground state: “What I heard from Chad Griffin that day was a sophisticated shakedown.” Stith, an African-American, said he finds comparisons of the bathroom controversy to the struggle for black civil rights “extremely offensive.”

It’s a distinction McCrory has tried to draw in national interviews as well. When Chris Wallace of Fox News asked the governor about comparisons to separate facilities for black and white citizens, McCrory noted: “We can definitely define the race of people. It’s very hard to define transgender or gender identity.”

THE EFFORT TO PLACE GENDER identity in the same category with race marches on, and complex cases will continue to surface in a culture loosening its grip on basic definitions of human sexuality.

Still, McCrory hasn’t denied the struggle some people face over their sexuality, and he’s spoken of the genuine need to make special arrangements for those dealing with what he’s called “unique issues.”

It’s a discussion he didn’t expect to find himself leading, and for a politician with a moderate past, it’s worth asking, Why is he willing to stake his political future on this particular issue?

McCrory’s campaign spokesman didn’t return requests for an interview with the governor, but I did speak with David Chadwick, a Charlotte pastor and a friend to McCrory for over two decades.

The pair connected after McCrory heard Chadwick’s local radio program, and he reached out to the pastor for spiritual support. Chadwick invited McCrory (then mayor of Charlotte) to a weekly Bible study and prayer group with local men. McCrory stayed with the group for 10 years and now has a similar circle in Raleigh.

Chadwick said he hasn’t counseled McCrory on the particulars of the HB2 controversy, but he has offered prayers and support. He says he thinks McCrory’s Christian faith informs his decisions, and that in the case of HB2, he thinks McCrory believes it’s “just the right thing to do. … That’s why I think he’s stuck to his guns.”

McCrory has appeared baffled over the controversy and has expressed particular concern over the prospect of opening changing facilities and locker rooms to either sex. He’s mostly framed it as an issue of safety and common sense.

Whatever the outcome of the race for governor—or president—transgender activists will likely continue to push their agenda aggressively in coming years. Chadwick says he encourages his congregation to face such prospects with faithfulness and joy: Worship well, love others, serve the needy, pursue purity, and be a vibrant witness.

“We can’t stop evil from proliferating,” he said. “But in a decaying society, the church is called to be salt and light.”

Outside the box

A recent Gallup poll showed nearly 60 percent of Americans desire a major third party in American politics, but far fewer voters express enthusiasm for the actual third party candidates running in this year’s election.

Libertarian presidential nominee Gary Johnson has polled highest outside the Republican or Democratic parties, but his support dipped below 8 percent by early October. Jill Stein, the candidate for the environmentally driven Green Party, slid to less than 2.5 percent.

Even if a candidate gains traction, he also needs to gain access for his name to appear on ballots. Each state sets its own rules and deadlines for what it takes for a candidate’s name to appear. By early October, the tracking group Ballot Access News reported Johnson’s name would appear on ballots in all 50 states and Stein would appear in 44 states.

The Constitution Party’s Darrell Castle is set to appear on ballots in at least 24 states. Castle, a Tennessee attorney, is a Christian with a pro-life, small government platform. He is a frequent critic of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, and he has received the endorsement of radio host Glenn Beck.

Independent candidate Evan McMullin is set to appear on ballots in at least 11 states. The former Capitol Hill staffer is a Mormon and a pro-life conservative who worked for the CIA for a decade. A Public Policy Polling survey in late September showed McMullin polling at 2 percent—a small number, but a notable climb for a little-known candidate.

What about write-in votes? Again, each state sets its own rules, but nine states don’t allow write-in votes at all. In 34 other states, candidates must meet state requirements to be considered an official write-in candidate.

The best way to know what your ballot will look like: Research local rules and check your local election board for a sample ballot ahead of Nov. 8. —J.D.