Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton boards her campaign plane to travel to North Carolina. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

With five days left to campaign before Election Day, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton will focus their attention heavily Thursday on North Carolina, a pivotal battleground where polls show a close contest between the presidential rivals.

Trump will hold rallies in Concord and Selma, N.C., after a midday event in Jacksonville, Fla. Clinton will hold events encouraging early voting in Winterville and Raleigh, N.C.

Meanwhile, Trump’s wife Melania will make her highest-profile appearance on the campaign trail since speaking at the Republican National Convention. She will deliver remarks in Berwyn, Pa., a suburb of Philadelphia, about what a Trump presidency would mean for women, children and families, according to the Trump campaign.

“My wife, Melania, will be speaking in Pennsylvania this afternoon. So exciting, big crowds! I will be watching from North Carolina,” Trump tweeted Thursday morning.

President Obama will campaign for Clinton in Florida, holding rallies on college campuses in Miami and Jacksonville. In Ohio, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) will campaign for Clinton, while Bill Clinton will stump in Nevada for his wife.

North Carolina’s 15 electoral votes will be among the biggest prizes on Tuesday night. After the state voted Republican for seven straight presidential elections, President Obama turned the state blue in 2008. But it flipped back to Republican Mitt Romney in 2012, and the GOP further reasserted itself in the 2014 midterms.

The state is undergoing swift demographic changes, gaining Hispanics and young white professionals, who tend to vote Democratic.

A Quinnipiac University survey released Wednesday showed Clinton with a small lead over Trump.

The Trump campaign says it also has its sights set on more Democratic states. In an interview on MSNBC, Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway said the campaign is trying to make a push into Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. But polls show Clinton leading in those states.

“I mean, look, if you try to apply conventional political wisdom to Donald Trump, you lose every time,” said Conway. “The idea that, well, Michigan or Wisconsin have been elusive to Republican candidates. He’s just different. His message on illegal immigration, trade and jobs and patriotism. . . . It’s just a different messenger.”

Clinton on Wednesday laid out her final argument to voters still wavering over their presidential choice, asking Americans to “imagine” how Trump would conduct himself in the Oval Office.

“Imagine having a president who demeans women, mocks the disabled, insults Latinos, African Americans, the disabled, POWs, who pits people against each other,” the Democratic presidential nominee told a sprawling crowd gathered for a nighttime rally on the campus of Arizona State University.

“We really don’t have to imagine what it would be like, because everything he has said and done – both in his career and this campaign – is a pretty good preview,” she added.

The tightness of the race – and the multiple states poised to have a pivotal effect on the outcome – was apparent in the vast distances covered by both candidates and their surrogates Wednesday, as well as the tens of millions of dollars in advertising lined up to fill the airwaves in the last days.

A bullish Trump spent the day in Florida, assuring supporters that he was on the path to victory, while his running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, raced through Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado. Trump’s children also campaigned in key battlegrounds on his behalf, making stops in Colorado, North Carolina, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas – Trump’s long-lasting rival in the primary contest – was set to appear with Pence on Thursday in Iowa and Michigan.

Speaking to a crowd of fired-up fans in Pensacola at his third stop of the day, the real estate developer at one point gave himself a lecture about staying on message.

“In six days, we are going to win the great state of Florida, and we are going to win the White House,” the GOP nominee said. “It’s feeling like it already, isn’t it? We’ve got to be nice and cool, nice and cool. All right? Stay on point, Donald, stay on point. No sidetracks, Donald.”

Trump proclaimed that as president he would allow “tremendous numbers” of legal immigrants based on a “merit system.”

“They have to come in legally,” he added. “And we’ll have merit involved, too. Wouldn’t it be nice if we went a little bit on the merit system? We take people that are really going to help us to grow our country? Wouldn’t that be nice? Somebody said: ‘You can’t say that, that’s not politically correct.’ Well, I just said it, folks.”

Trump’s campaign said Wednesday that the Republican nominee will hold his election night event at the New York Hilton Midtown. The campaign rented a ballroom in the Hilton but expects to do a small event – at least compared with most of Trump’s big rallies, according to one person familiar with the plans who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe strategy.

In 2012, GOP nominee Mitt Romney spent $25,000 on a fireworks show over Boston Harbor that never came to pass because he lost to President Obama. There are no plans for Trump fireworks next Tuesday, the person said. Trump is “superstitious” and does not want to jinx things by planning a big victory celebration, the person added.

Trump’s decision means that both presidential nominees will be spending next Tuesday just a couple of miles apart. Clinton and her supporters will gather at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in Manhattan – a building with a symbolic architectural feature: a large glass ceiling.

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Phillip reported from Tempe, Ariz. Johnson reported from Miami, Orlando and Pensacola. The Washington Post’s Matea Gold, Anne Gearan and David Nakamura in Washington and Juliet Eilperin in Chapel Hill, N.C., contributed to this report.

Authors Information:

Abby Phillip is a national political reporter for the Washington Post.

Sean Sullivan has covered national politics for The Washington Post since 2012.

Jenna Johnson is a political reporter who is covering the 2016 presidential campaign.

(c) 2016, The Washington Post · Sean Sullivan, Abby Phillip, Jenna Johnson