Readers: First, you are likely aware of the devastation caused by Hurricane Helene in Western North Carolina. As of the writing of this article, the recovery is well on its way, but the devastation has been well documented and numerous people remain missing. The full scope of this damage may not be able to be determined for some time, but for now, please consider donating to https://pay.payitgov.com/ncdonations to help people currently in crisis, and for when the rebuilding starts.

North Carolina, federally speaking, has only been a swing state in name since Barack Obama’s first run for the White House. Not including Obama and Kay Hagan in 08, Republicans have won every statewide election at the federal level and the majority of non-federal statewide races too. Democrats have contested the state every chance they get but haven’t reached the highs of 08 since. Their quest for the Governor’s Mansion has been a different story. Democrats seeking the governorship in North Carolina haven’t had the same fate as they have had in other Southern States. Like their counterparts, Democrats dominated the twentieth century and have been able to withstand the coalitional change that has plagued them at the federal level. There have only been three Republican governors since the sixties. The same is true in nearby Georgia, though the story gets a bit clearer when looking just at the 21st century. While Republicans have carried the state in each of the races since 2000 in Georgia, Democrats have only lost the state once then in North Carolina. And they are favored to win again this year with Pivot Point rating the state at Safe D. At the presidential level polling has consistently shown Democrats within striking distance. 538’s polling average has had it within one point every day but one over the last month. And Split Ticket’s model gives Democrats a nominally better chance of winning the state than in Georgia. Though a four percent difference is virtually tied, it still shows Democrats with a real chance of flipping the state. So, what’s going on there? We’ll be giving you some regional insight as to what might be going on, and offer benchmarks on where each candidate needs to hit in order to bring the state to their column. To aid in this, we’ve developed informal regions that can serve as building blocks to analyze the state. The regions can be seen in the image below, shaded by how they voted in 2020.

The Mountain West

North Carolina’s Mountain West stretches from Tennessee and Georgia in the west, Virginia in the north, and tracing along the border with South Carolina to the south. The region is anchored by the city of Asheville, and also contains the cities of Hendersonville, Lenoir, Morganton, and Brevard. The area is fairly tourism centric, with people coming from around the country to hike in the Blue Ridge, Pisgah National Forest, and Smoky Mountains National Park. With this tourism, the area has seen an influx of business and economic activity in recent years.

Politically speaking, the region at-large is very Republican. It contains a lot of rural communities, and portions of the state’s ancestrally Republican foothills. NC-11, however, has been a swing district for years. For illustrative purposes, we’ve included a hypothetical, maximally competitive iteration of NC-11 that could be drawn (and almost existed pre-2022). This version of the seat would have voted for Trump by around 7.5 points, and the current version (which stretches further east instead of north) did so by around 11.5 points. Asheville serves as the region’s main Democratic hub, and often espouses its own brand of Democratic Socialist politics. Other Democratic vote centers in the area include Boone, Brevard, Hendersonville, and the Cherokee-dominant areas in the region’s west.

Between 2016 and 2020, our Mountain West region shifted from approximately Trump+24 to Trump+21. The areas shifting left the fastest are the TBH counties of Transylvania, Buncombe, and Henderson (as coined by John Haynes), which sit at the center of our hypothetical district plan. The area has seen most of Asheville’s growth, suburban-ification, and subsequent Democratic gains. Comparable gains are also happening around the Boone area, but the most severe Democratic drop offs are happening in the far western and eastern ends of the “district”, away from major population centers. 

What do we expect to happen here? We’ve seen no indication that the Asheville area is going to halt its leftward march. In fact, quite the opposite. In 2022, Democrat Senate candidate Cherrie Beasley out-performed Biden throughout the Asheville-adjacent portion of the district. For example, Beasley only lost Buncombe County’s HD 116 by 3 points, whereas Biden lost it by over 8 points in 2020 (shown below). Beasley cratered in much of the state, including the Sandhills and Black Belt, yet out-performed expectations here. We would expect that, in the event of Harris winning the state, the Mountain West Region would shift a point or two to the left, with Democrats gaining ground in the TBH counties and in the Boone area, and holding down loses in the far reaches of the region.

The Triad

The Piedmont Triad, not to be confused with the Research Triangle, is typically thought of as three of the region’s major cities: High Point, Winston-Salem, and Greensboro. Our definition for the purposes of this article should also include Burlington to the Triad’s traditional east. The area is very urban and suburban in nature, and also contains a few more rural/exurban counties to the north. 

The Triad moved slightly to the left in 2020, going from around 7k votes for Clinton in 2016 to more than 20k for Biden in 2020, much bigger than the increase in the electorate. The under-the-hood shifts we saw were the same as the story of 2020, for the most part. The majority-nonwhite urban centers and white rurals shifted right, and the white urban turf and suburbs shifted left. Polls have been anything but clear as to where Harris stands in regard to expected minority vote share, but its rational to assume that she would do *at least* as well as Biden would have with minority voters. One shouldn’t “cross tab dive” and much of the narrative around the non-white vote has been drawn from cross tabs. A Harris win would likely see a 5-point spread in the region (up from 3 points in 2020), whereas doing worse than Biden would likely spell disaster. 

The county to watch in this region is Alamance, home to Burlington, and a county that Trump won by about eight and a half points in 2020. Alamance is a mix of urban, suburban, and rural turf, with significant minority populations in the major communities. In the concurrent gubernatorial race, Alamance is a real flip-watch, given that highly controversial Republican LG Mark Robinson is running for Governor, and dragging the rest of the ticket down with him due to his scandals (which we wrote about here). What might this mean for Alamance in the Presidential race? Well, Trump was already favored to lose ground here. His ceiling and floor have likely dropped. We would estimate that Alamance drops to around R+4 at the top of the ticket, which will significantly harm Republican odds of winning the state if that ground can’t be made up elsewhere. 

Throwing resources at this area also has potential implications for the race for the State Legislature.. As we highlighted in a previous article, the clustering of Forsyth (Winston-Salem) and Stokes counties is a key area for control of the chamber. If Democrats are able to go on the offensive in two seats that lean Republican (as we wrote about here last year) it could have profound effects on Stein’s ability to govern, should he win. The high-profile party switch last year by Tricia Cotham gave Republicans a veto-proof majority, and Democrats will be keen to change that. Granted, these are definitely uphill battles, but taking advantage of a favorable environment could definitely pay off for Democrats in this area (and many others throughout the state).

Red Central

Our definition of Red Central NC encompasses a lot of the turf known as the foothills, and it’s one of the most potently Republican regions of the state. The area has a handful of smaller counties, but five large, very red ones: Catawba, Iredell, Davidson, Rowan and Randolph (CIDRR, if you like). Republicans rely on these counties for a significant part of their statewide margins, and are populated with residents of denser rural communities and exurbs from both the Triad and Charlotte metro. 

This area only shifted moderately left from 2016 to 2020, with Biden improving on Clinton’s margin by about 2 points. Democrats fell significantly with minority populations in the smattering of small cities (ex. Lexington and Salisbury) and the more purely rural areas, but improved in the more suburban turf bordering Mecklenburg and Forsyth counties. Democrats have no chance of winning this district outright, but any improvement in the area will likely pay off. Will Democrats improve here? Probably, the major county-adjacent precincts are likely to continue jetting left, likely pushing Democrats past the 22% threshold in the region.

Using DRA to examine the shifts between 2016 and 2020, we’ve highlighted the Mecklenburg County-adjacent precincts in the Red Central region. We can see that Mooresville in Iredell County is jetting to the left, and the Kannapolis portion in Rowan County is following suit just a tad more slowly. Lincoln County to the west also doesn’t get a lot of attention due to its lack of competitiveness and relative unimportance, but its adjacent communities to Mecklenburg have seen a comparable shift left. This will be a key region to watch on election night, as it may well determine the end result of a close Presidential race if Democrats can bat above par. 

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In recent years, the Charlotte area has seen a population boom... Major businesses (ex. Chiqueta) have moved in town, and areas inside and out of the city alike have grown accordingly. The area is now sizable enough to have two Congressional seats within the area we’ve defined, but so far, the legislature and courts have seen fit to deny it that right.

There are two broad trends happening in the region: African American voters have shifted towards Republicans, and suburban white voters have shifted much more towards Democrats. We can see the loss of African American voters in the core of Charlotte itself, Gaston, and Monroe, and the suburban boost basically everywhere else. Strikingly, the 16->20 shift saw Democrats go from carrying the area by five to carrying it by eleven four years later. The area does catch a lot of flak for not backing Democrats to the degree that the Research Triangle region does, but it shifted much further to the left than the Triangle did during this time. 

Cabbarus County will play a critical role in any success Democrats see in the region. In 2020, Trump won it by about 9.5 points, which was the worst showing for a federal Republican in years. It has seen its nonwhite population grow in recent years, and along with the suburban boom and realignment, this has dramatically improved fortunes for Democrats. In 2022, Democrat Diamond Stanton-Williams flipped a State House seat here, with another one wholly within the county coming close to flipping in the US Senate race (Democrats did not contest this state leg. seat that year). Again, this is an area where the Mark Robinson scandals are going to hurt Republicans. Josh Stein in the governor’s race is favored narrowly to outright win it, and Harris is likely to hold Trump to under a 5-point margin. 

The Triangle

The Research Triangle (Triangle for short) has seen massive Democratic gains in recent years. The area is home to the college cities of Durham and Chapel Hill, the state’s capital and massive urban area of Raleigh, and a number of suburbs and areas of rural turf on its outskirts. The region’s voting age population grew by over 400,000 people between the 2010 and 2020 censuses, with an even larger overall population boom ensuing. 

In the area, we can see the political shifts that match the story of the state’s other regions. African American voters in small cities and the urban cores of Raleigh and Durham shifted right in 2020, along with the outer rural precincts of the region. Suburbanites and Asian American voters (centered in Wake County [Raleigh]) shifted significantly to the left. Some of the biggest shifts came from Apex and Cary in Wake County, which at times have been the fastest growing communities in the country.

In 2022, some of the highest turnout in the state came from Wake County, specifically those from the city of Wake Forest in the county’s north. The area has both a competitive State House race, and a competitive State Senate race, both of which ultimately went to Democrats. This enabled them to (pre-Cotham party switch) be able to sustain Gov. Cooper’s veto. These seats have been redrawn, and the new SD 18 became notably more Republican leaning, going from a ~3 point Biden win to just short of a two point Trump win in 2020. The seat contains Granville County to Wake’s north, Wake Forest, and a few other communities (including part of Raleigh in Wake). Democrats are lucky that the Wake Forest area is trending leftwards pretty fast, but they’ll still have a fight on their hands for the seat.

If Harris is to win the state, she’s likely carrying SD 18 by a point or two. Despite some left-trending southern suburbs, Granville County has lost its swingy quality and now has a consistently Republican lean. Her margin is going to need to come near-entirely from Wake, which is wholly doable given the current state of North Carolina’s polling. If she were to lose the seat, it would indicate North Carolina may retain its status as just barely out of reach for Democrats (for anything but a handful of Council of State Offices).

The Black Belt

North Carolina Democrats have been prone to isolated regional collapses since the Obama era. In 2012, the mountains saw Democratic dropoff. In 2016, Democrats cratered in the Sandhills. And in 2020, the Black Belt was the culprit. There isn’t nearly a uniform definition for the region, but we at Pivot Point have decided that for our purposes, it encompasses much of the non-coastal turf of NC-01 that is either rural areas with large African American populations or mid-sized cities that are disproportionately Black. 

Between 2016 and 2020, Democratic vote share dropped by 2%. That number, had just more rural communities been included, would have been substantially higher. Democratic margins were bolstered by the southern end of the region with suburbs/exurbs of Greenville and Goldsboro, as well as Nash County (exurban Raleigh area) to the north. Beasley actually narrowly lost the area in 2022, dropping over 7 points from Biden’s 2020 margin. 

The region is still fairly Democratic in parts, so it becomes difficult to show a representative sample for an area to watch, but we believe that HD 23 is a good area to keep an eye on. Edgecombe and Bertie counties in the region are reliably Democratic, each going for Biden by double digits. Edgecombe also has half of Rocky Mount, one of the larger cities in the region. Martin County, conversely, was an Obama -> Trump county, and has narrowly voted for Republicans in most statewide races. The seat shifted notably to the right in 2020, with Biden having lost ground with African American voters and rural voters alike. Democrats losing ground with rurals is anything but surprising, but loses with African American voters is a more concerning trend. If the seat drops below D+10, Harris is in trouble. If it stays above D+13 or so, Harris is likely doing ok. This does come with the notable caveat that we actually have no idea how minority groups are going to vote, given that polls have been wildly inconsistent. There is a great debate between polling experts and election forecasters about whether we are in for a radical coalitional change not seen since the sixties or if, perhaps, there is something happening with the polling industry with regards to these voters.

The Sandhills

The Sandhills sit along the border with South Carolina and are named because of the sandy soil found in the area. This region is also home to the Lumbee Tribe, who are the largest Native American tribe without federal recognition in the US. In recent years, the area has seen its population shrink significantly, with the only area of optimism being Anson and Moore counties due to exurban growth. 

The region proved to be a significant problem for Democrats in 2016, with the area going from double digits for Obama to a Trump+3 win, falling even further to a Trump+6 win in 2020. Even between 2016 and 2020, some precincts swung close to 30 points to the right. The worst damage done to Democrats was in majority Lumbee areas, with the group having been a conservative Democratic-backing group that realigned with the Republican party after 2016. Beasley even dropped to over a 10 point loss here, which bodes extremely poorly for Democrats going forward.

Appropriately, a division within this region that best exemplifies what’s going on is Robeson County, which has a Lumbee-plurality, but also has significant white and African American populations. This county saw around a 20k drop in population between the last two censuses. Democrats used to reliably carry the northern and western areas of the county, but now Democratic-won precincts are driven near exclusively due to African American populations. Biden ended up losing the county by just short of 19 points in 2020, with his main area of concentrated support being from the city of Lumberton.

Harris almost definitely is going to lose the Sandhills. The important question to ask, as with many of these regions, is by how much? At the end of the day, all that matters is how each of the regions add up. If Harris only loses a point or two of ground in the region at-large, she’ll be in good shape. This likely means improving in and around Fayetteville (the region’s primary city) and Southern Pines and keeping losses elsewhere to a minimum. In Robeson, Harris can probably afford to lose by just a hair over 20 points but keeping the margin steady is key. The Lumbee continuing to drift rightwards on par with their 2016 or 2020 would spell disaster for the Harris campaign without being offset elsewhere. Accordingly, in an attempt to capture Lumbee voters, both parties have made federal recognition of the tribe a priority. One could ask if this hasn’t been done yet due to Senators from states with large Native populations opposing recognition out of concerns about further divided funding for Native programs and assistance. 

Coastal

North Carolina is definitely no Florida in terms of beaches, but NC’s coastal regions are seeing a boom. People are flocking to the state’s coastal cities of Wilmington, Jacksonville, and Kitty Hawk, among others. The area added around 90,000 registered voters between 2010 and 2020, with the majority of that coming from the Wilmington area to the south. 

Biden only posted modest gains along the coast vs Hillary Clinton’s numbers. He gained about 2% of the vote, mainly due to the third party dropoff in this deeply red area. These gains came mainly from more densely populated and higher educated coastal communities, like the Wilmington suburbs and vacation towns like Kitty Hawk (where Republicans once dominated). Conversely, the losses came from more rural, African American turf in the region’s inland reaches (where Democrats once dominated). 

The area we’re keeping an eye on to gauge how Harris is doing on election night are the trio of Wilmington adjacent counties: Brunswick, New Hanover, and Pender. With Wilmington at the center, the trio voted for Trump by around 12 points in 2020, which marked a notable shift to the left from past years. Pender and Brunswick, while formerly Democratic-dominated counties, have become much more Republican. New Hanover always had the sort of upper-class voter that has always leaned right (though less lately), but also had a majority nonwhite urban center to moderate it. Now, all three are moving leftwards.