Politico: “It’s a tale about the rebirth in local manufacturing in this region, but it’s also the story of the Republican Party’s electoral resilience in North Carolina. Rural and exurban places like Davidson County may not be growing as fast as Charlotte’s Mecklenburg County and Raleigh’s Wake County, the two metropolitan engines of the state’s rapid growth, but they’re serving as an important economic and political counterbalance.
In Davidson’s case, the economic revitalization around manufacturing is reinforcing local conservative tendencies, rather than diluting them with an influx of Democratic-leaning newcomers. So as Mecklenburg and Wake continue to bolster the state’s Democratic performance, Davidson and counties like it have combined to offset those gains, forming a Republican bulwark that’s kept the state narrowly in Donald Trump’s camp.
…After Barack Obama narrowly won North Carolina in 2008, many assumed the state would move into the Democratic column. Just as college-educated progressives had colonized Northern Virginia, turning that state blue, Democrats believed the same thing would happen here.
But the Obama sequel never arrived. Republicans have won the last three presidential elections, albeit by close margins. They’ve also won the five U.S. Senate races since Obama’s victory.
The GOP’s recipe has been to squeeze more votes from the state’s most rural counties, while also rolling up robust margins in suburban and exurban counties, like Cabarrus and Union counties outside of Charlotte, and Johnston County outside of Raleigh.”