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Carabids, or ground beetles, may be ruled out:

https://bugguide.net/node/view/186

^ scroll to "Identification (#3)

https://content.ces.ncsu.edu/the-ground-beetles-of-eastern-north-carolina-agriculture

^ scroll to "Description of..."

[your beetle has no hind trochanters]

Switching to the Darkling tenebrionid beetles, 600+ bugguide pages, and scanning down the list for just those species with common names, I like Alobates pensylvanicus - False Mealworm, mostly for its wide range, and rounded thorax as opposed to sharp-cornered thoraxes of most Darklings.

https://bugguide.net/node/view/2191244/bgimage

I would say likely a Darkling beetle of a genus with a round-ish pronotum (top of thorax).

Thanks for the ID assistance. I did see A. pensylvanicus in my beetle book but the width of the femurs in the photo looked wrong so I didn't look further. Bugguide and iNaturalist photos however are a much better match, maybe because there are more of them. Thanks again.