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Republicans will continue rallying supporters next week with a 10-stop statewide tour that features NCGOP Chairman Robin Hayes, gubernatorial hopeful Pat McCrory and candidates from Congressional races all the way down the ballot.

Pat McCrory, GOP Council of State candidates, and others will be in attendance to kick off the tour at the Wilkesboro Victory office Saturday at 9 a.m.

Click through to see events that have been announced, and check next week to seee featured guests at each stop.

How do you pay the bills when the party’s over and the guests have gone? Democratic National Convention organizers are about to find out.

After struggling for more than a year to raise money – and ultimately coming up short – they face $10 million in debts and unpaid obligations, according to reports filed this week with the Federal Election Commission. “This is a difficult debt to retire,” said Viveca Novak, a spokeswoman for the Center for Responsive Politics. “If (President) Obama loses on Nov. 6, then very few people are going to want to give to this lingering debt from the convention.” Full story here.

More political headlines:

--As Mitt Romney's campaign shifts a staffer to Ohio, saying North Carolina is confidently red, the Obama campaign said rather than downsizing, it had in recent weeks added organizers. “This signals to North Carolina voters that the Romney campaign is taking their votes for granted,” said Cameron French, the chief spokesman for the state Obama campaign.

North Carolina’s early voting period began Thursday morning with solid crowds hitting the polls on the first day. About 350 sites across the state feature early voting until Nov. 3.

Among those who arrived to vote early was a group from Obama for America, which marched from the organization’s Charlotte headquarters on East Ninth Street to vote early. At mid-morning, dozens of people were still waiting in line outside the building.

Less than an hour before early voting opened Thursday at most Wake County precincts, big-name Democrats rolled into North Carolina State University's Brickyard to make sure the party's longstanding focus on the "ground-game" pays off, from the presidential race all the way down the ballot.

Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, a U.S. Representative from South Florida, who seves as Chair of the Democratic National Committee, boasted about Charlotte's role in the Democratic National Convention to a crowd that was equal parts reporters and students.

When asked about a recent report that large in-kind contributions were accepted from companies including Duke Energy and Bank of America to bankroll the convention, though, Wasserman-Schultz dodged and did not address the party broke its promise to deny funds from corporations and billionaire donors.

A wave of excited young voters helped lift President Barack Obama to a narrow victory in the state four years ago, but flagging support is now putting a repeat win in jeopardy. If Obama does end up losing North Carolina this election, it could be because of voters like Jennifer Bachelor.

An Elon University graduate, Bachelor cast her first vote for president for Obama, but she has agreed with his positions less and less as his term wore on. Her assessment of the president’s performance is so negative that the Raleigh resident watched the vice-presidential debate last week with other staunch backers of the Mitt Romney/Paul Ryan ticket at a GOP-sponsored party. Full story here.

More political headlines:

--Early voting starts today in North Carolina -- meaning everyday through Nov. 3 is election day. Find Triangle area voting sites here.

--Walter Dalton leveled a new ethics charge at GOP rival Pat McCrory in the debate. Read a fact-check here.

With early voting a day away, Obama for America on Wednesday is launching an RV tour that will stretch across North Carolina and is aimed at encouraging supporters to cast ballots.

Just a day earlier, during a visit to the state that included a stop in Chapel Hill, First Lady Michelle Obama toured the RV, which the campaign is calling the Early Vote Express.

In a memo this morning, President Barack Obama's re-election campaign is touting absentee voting and registration numbers in North Carolina and six other battlegrounds.

It says:

-- Republicans are leading in absentee ballot requests, but not by as much as in 2008. This year they lead by 34,000. Four years ago it was 39,000.

-- Democratic registrations have outpaced Republicans by more than 29,000 in the last three months.

When N.C. Alcohol Law Enforcement Agent Matthew Stemple picked up the phone in the Hickory office that day, what seemed like a routine tip soon veered into a mystery that still hasn’t been resolved nearly three years later.

The tangled trail begins with an allegation of the low-tech but venerable crime of mountain moonshine and ultimately leads into the complex new technology of cellphone “spoofing.” Left unanswered, even after years of legal filings and court testimony, is this question: Who exactly was framing whom? Read more here.

Other political news:

--Charlotte television stations are already pouring tens of thousands of dollars into covering September’s Democratic National Convention, gearing up for what is probably the most extensive local story since Hurricane Hugo hit in 1989.

The State Board of Elections on Friday wrapped up an investigation into Pat McCrory’s 2008 gubernatorial campaign by referring five campaign donors for possible prosecution, including four members of a Charlotte family.

Elections official Kim Strach told the board that Kenneth Gill, president of CPI Security, may have reimbursed three members of his family and an employee for donations to McCrory’s campaign. Giving in the name of another, or so-called “straw donors,” is illegal under North Carolina law. The case was referred to Mecklenburg District Attorney Andrew Murray. Read more here.

With the primary days away, many other political stories are in the headlines:

--The first week of early voting set a record -- surpassing even the heated 2008 Democratic primary election. Read more about the numbers here.

--Five GOP candidates are vying for the state superintendent nomination. Here's a primer on the race.

--The Republican race for lieutenant governor is all about big ideas outside the bounds of the office's muted power -- and a desire for a partisan takeover of the state's top two posts.

Early voting leading up to the May 8 primary election has surged across North Carolina, driven by intense interest in the so-called marriage amendment.

Turnout is on a pace to exceed that of any primary election since the state implemented one-stop voting in 2000.

The first week of one-stop voting has even surpassed the first week in the presidential primary election of 2008 between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, which drew 102,815 votes. As of noon Friday, 114,243 one-stop votes had been cast. Including mail-in ballots, 121,545 people have voted since the 17-day one-stop period began April 19.