Why can’t Dems get over the hump in NC?

[GAinDC]

Obama won it in 2008 but since then it’s been stubbornly lean R.

Why? It’s diverse and fast growing with big cities and progressive communities full of young people, POC, immigrants, lgbtq, students and other left leaning groups.

Every cycle, Dems have pumped massive amounts of money into races here only to end up disappointed.

Any ideas?

[TML]

Contrary to popular belief, the most strongly Republican areas of NC are not the rural areas (in fact, some rural areas are majority nonwhite and those areas routinely give Democrats high vote shares), but so-called "Countrypolitan" counties - which are counties on the outskirts of major metro areas across the state. These places are mostly whiter and less educated than the statewide average, which explains why they routinely give Republican candidates high vote shares. For example, in 2020 Biden won Mecklenburg County (home to Charlotte) by 35 points, but he combined to lose the other counties in the Charlotte metro area by double digits, so he only won the entire Charlotte metro area by about 4 points.

Now, because of the demographic characteristics of these "Countrypolitan" counties, it is unlikely that most of them would flip anytime soon, but given how close NC statewide elections have tended to be, Democrats could tilt the state in their favor simply by slightly reducing their losing margins in these places. A good way to accomplish this is to focus on the most D-leaning areas in these places (i.e. the most populated urban areas and/or places with colleges) and boost turnout in these places.

[Skill and Chance]

1. Dems lost rural support more slowly in NC than pretty much anywhere in the South.  Not losing rural white voters by as much of a landslide as other Southern states was a very underrated factor in the 2008 win they can't seem to replicate.  Now, the losses are extending to rural minority voters.

2. Retirees moving into the coastal areas are creating something of a Florida effect

3. The inland western part of the state (but still east of the mountains themselves) just keeps getting more R.  It has some Rust Belt characteristics with a lot of manufacturing that went out of business in the 2000's, so that could also be a factor. 

4. The multiple small-medium cities setup in NC seems inherently harder for the new Dem coalition than a state dominated by 1-2 large cities like GA or AZ. 

5.  D's have also struggled vs. (much higher) expectations in VA recently.  Could be something cultural that extends across state lines?

IMO looks much more promising than it actually is.   

[Sol]

Obama won it in 2008 but since then it’s been stubbornly lean R.

Why? It’s diverse and fast growing with big cities and progressive communities full of young people, POC, immigrants, lgbtq, students and other left leaning groups.

It is really striking, isn't it? Especially since Democrats have actually gotten extremely huge swings in North Carolina cities, which are kind of underestimated since they haven't actually flipped any counties with it. In 2012, Mitt Romney won a huge swath of Mecklenburg County and Held Obama at 54% in Wake County; now Republicans have to fight to keep their seat in north Meck and are relegated to the quasi-rural zone of SE Wake in the state legislature.

The issue is that these places aren't that high a percentage of the population. NC is dominated demographically by small cities and large towns, which means you have a lot of very populous hyper-Republican counties.

This is actually a fairly common demographic pattern in the South; somewhere like the NC Foothills looks a lot like NW Georgia politically and demographically.

Getting over the hump in North Carolina will require some combination of stopping the bleeding in the rural Eastern part of the state -- which arguably caused Biden's loss in 2020 -- and continuing to consolidate support in cities. IMO the former is a bit more valuable because it means better things for Democrats in the NC Legislature, but the latter is probably easier since national Democrats seem to really want to go down a nasty neoliberal path.

[DS0816]

Obama won it in 2008 but since then it’s been stubbornly lean R.

Why? It’s diverse and fast growing with big cities and progressive communities full of young people, POC, immigrants, lgbtq, students and other left leaning groups.

Every cycle, Dems have pumped massive amounts of money into races here only to end up disappointed.

Any ideas?

The 2012 and 2020 Democrats needed to win the U.S. Popular Vote by +5 percentage points to carry North Carolina.

Had that happened, North Carolina would have joined The Rust Belt Trio—Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin—as the only states which have voted for all presidential winners with the last four election cycles of 2008, 2012, 2016, and 2020.

North Carolina was the Democrats’s No. 26 best state in both 2016 and 2020. I think that is where it will continue to rank. So, the Democrats need to hit their necessary margin in the U.S. Popular Vote and they will carry the state. And whether a given election requires +4 or +5 nationally for North Carolina, going +1 point higher would also bring in No. 27 Texas.

I will add this: I label North Carolina a Sleeper Bellwether. It is poised to be regularly carried. But, again, the Democrats—when they are the prevailing party—have to hit their numbers.

[wnwnwn]

Isn't most of the 'bleeding' product of black depopulation?

[GAinDC]

Isn't most of the 'bleeding' product of black depopulation?

I thought the Black population in NC was increasing

[ReaganLimbaugh]

They are too far to the extreme left.

[Skill and Chance]

Isn't most of the 'bleeding' product of black depopulation?

No, Dems were getting ~35% of the rural white vote in NC until very recently vs. ~20% or less in the rest of the South. 

[iceman]

same is true for Republicans in Minnesota.