Why has North Carolina and Virginia trended Democrat 4 times in a row now?

[The Undefeatable Debbie Stabenow]

Can I ask how you are determining if a state trends one way or another? From 2012 to 2016, the Democrats' share of the vote dropped by 2.2% and the Republican margin of victory increased by 1.6% in North Carolina. I don't see how that is "trending Democratic", so I'm assuming you are measuring this in some other way.

[The Undefeatable Debbie Stabenow]

Can I ask how you are determining if a state trends one way or another? From 2012 to 2016, the Democrats' share of the vote dropped by 2.2% and the Republican margin of victory increased by 1.6% in North Carolina. I don't see how that is "trending Democratic", so I'm assuming you are measuring this in some other way.

Trends factor in the national swing with how the individual states shifted.

So from 2012-2016 the national popular vote went from Obama +3.86 to Clinton +2.06. The nation as a whole swung 1.8 points Republican.

North Carolina went from Romney +3.66 to Trump+2.04. North Carolina swung only 1.62 points more Republican.

Hence why North Carolina trended Democrat. The state may have swung Republican from 2012-2016, but not to the extent the entire nation did.

Ah, yes, I should've know, I've seen this methodology before. Thank you.

[The Undefeatable Debbie Stabenow]

Unless I'm calculating something incorrectly, didn't NC trend Republican from 2012 to 2016? Using NYT results, Obama won nationally by 2.8 and lost NC by 2.2 in 2012 (R+5.0). Clinton won nationally by 2.1 and lost NC by 3.6 (R+5.7).

Is it just a discrepancy between the source of results?

[The Undefeatable Debbie Stabenow]

Unless I'm calculating something incorrectly, didn't NC trend Republican from 2012 to 2016? Using NYT results, Obama won nationally by 2.8 and lost NC by 2.2 in 2012 (R+5.0). Clinton won nationally by 2.1 and lost NC by 3.6 (R+5.7).

Is it just a discrepancy between the source of results?

You were already talking about this just 6 or 7 posts ago lol. TT explained it, unless you're rethinking it?

No, I understand the methodology (which is what I was asking for clarification on before). However, the numbers he had used are significantly different from NYT 2012 results. Apparently NYT shows Obama with a lead ~1% smaller than most other sources, which is what was now confusing me, because if you use NYT numbers, NC did not trend Democratic from '12 to '16.

[The Undefeatable Debbie Stabenow]

Unless I'm calculating something incorrectly, didn't NC trend Republican from 2012 to 2016? Using NYT results, Obama won nationally by 2.8 and lost NC by 2.2 in 2012 (R+5.0). Clinton won nationally by 2.1 and lost NC by 3.6 (R+5.7).

Is it just a discrepancy between the source of results?

does the New York Times really have Obama's margin as 2.8%? it's more like 3.8%

Yes. NYT has Obama with ~62 million votes and Romney with ~59 million, while virtually every other source has Obama with ~65 million and Romney with ~60 million.