WUNC: “A Democratic presidential candidate has won North Carolina only once since 1976, when Barack Obama defeated Republican John McCain by less than half a percentage point in 2008. Democrats have lost U.S. Senate races in 2010, 2014, 2016, 2020 and 2022.
To understand why North Carolina Democrats keep falling short, WFAE reporters traveled U.S. 74, from the beach to Charlotte, examining the forces that are keeping the GOP one step ahead of Democrats in statewide federal races.
The first stop: Brunswick County, which shows demographic changes don’t always favor the Democratic Party.
Conventional wisdom is that newcomers moving to Charlotte and the Triangle are turning North Carolina blue.
That thinking notes that while the state’s largest cities are swelling with young, diverse and progressive voters, the Republican Party is left with the state’s rural areas, where the population is often falling. That’s where older voters — who once voted Democratic — are now keeping the GOP alive.
There is a lot of truth in that.
But it misses another key part of North Carolina politics: The state’s fastest-growing counties are increasingly Republican.”