Bill Clinton and North Carolina

[Mr. Morden]

Isn't this just a consequence of where NC was on the ideological spectrum at the time?

The solid Democratic South became the solid Republican South, a process which wasn't complete until the 1980s and 1990s.  That's why winning Dems won NC before 1980.  But then in the 2000s, states like VA and NC started "northernizing", and became more winnable for the Dems.

[Mr. Morden]

Look, here is the PVI for North Carolina in presidential elections from 1976 to 2008:

1976: D+9
1980: R+7
1984: R+6
1988: R+8
1992: R+6
1996: R+13
2000: R+13
2004: R+10 (even though Edwards was on the Democratic ticket)
2008: R+7

There wasn't anything particular about Bill Clinton.  North Carolina has been consistently R+6 to R+13 from 1980 to the present.  You could argue that it became more Republican in the late 1990s to early 2000s, and is now becoming more Democratic, but I don't see why that would be because of Clinton in particular.

[Mr. Morden]

Those PVI figures need to be divided by 2...

OK, sorry, I mentally blanked on the precise definition of PVI.