Could This Red State Turn Blue In 2024?

(Republican Insider) – A new report from the Daily Caller reveals that several experts in the political realm have stated there are a series of electoral and demographic factors in North Carolina that could potentially put the red state in play for President Joe Biden come November. And that is a horror story in the making, like something from the pages of a Stephen King novel.

“Democrats are setting their sights on North Carolina as opposed to other battleground states like Georgia for a rematch with former President Donald Trump. The narrow margin Trump won by in 2020, population changes in the state and the election of Republican gubernatorial nominee Mark Robinson might put North Carolina back on the map for Biden this cycle, according to political scientists and state operatives,” the piece divulged.

“Looks like at this point, North Carolina is the Trump state that is most likely to be in play in 2024, while there are half a dozen Biden states that are expected to be in play,” Charles Bullock, a political science professor who works at the University of Georgia and specializes in southern politics and elections, said during an interview with the DCNF.

As of this writing, all of the major swing states that were critical in helping Biden defeat Trump in the last presidential election are leaning red toward the former president, which includes Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. Trump has also taken a 5.5 point lead over Biden in North Carolina, a state where he received his slimmest margin of victory during the 2020 election.

North Carolina has been experiencing rapid growth over the course of the last four years, especially in the more urban areas of Charlotte, Durham, and Raleigh. In fact, the state has some of the country’s highest population growth between 2022 and 2023, just behind Texas and Florida.

This is bad news for Republicans, as the vast majority of individuals who are moving into North Carolina tend to lean to the left politically. In other words, the state is being invaded by Democrats, helping to provide a bigger block of voters for leftist candidates and that could contribute to possibly flipping the state blue.

“One of the reasons that President Biden is so laser focused on North Carolina is because North Carolina’s a state in transition, and is a state that demographically is urbanizing, is getting more college educated, the urban areas are growing really rapidly, and that is having the biggest impact on North Carolina’s electoral landscape for the last five years and for the next ten or 20 years,” Morgan Jackson, a Democratic consultant based in the state, declared during a conversation with the DCNF. “Virtually every county in the state that is growing rapidly in population is getting more Democratic.”

“North Carolina has also seen an increase of unaffiliated individuals, who now make up more of the registered voter population than either major party, according to the state’s data. Democrats have actually lost voters since the 2020 election, while Republicans have seen a slight increase,” the DC noted.

“I call it the swingiest of all swing states, and that’s because of the rapid growth of unaffiliated voters. In the last ten years, we’ve added almost a million unaffiliated voters,” Paul Shumaker, a Republican strategist who is based in North Carolina, went on to remark to the DCNF. “Unaffiliated voters are going to determine who wins and who loses, and that means North Carolina will be in play on both sides for at least the next two to three election cycles, regardless of who the candidates are.”

Robinson, who is serving as North Carolina’s lieutenant governor, nabbed the Republican Party nomination on Super Tuesday, pulling in almost 65 percent of the vote. Attorney General Josh Stein, a Democrat, pulled in a whopping 69.6 percent of his party’s vote.

“The Trump-endorsed candidate has only held public office since 2020, but has made a series of remarks on various social issues that critics have pointed to when arguing against his candidacy and electability,” the article continued.

“What I think makes North Carolina more attractive to Democrats right now is the nomination of Mark Robinson and his record of statements,” Bullock explained. “He has endorsed Trump, Trump has endorsed him, and so there’ll be efforts to link those two on that issue of the role of women in politics, on abortion, a whole bunch of social issues.”

“Not only does Trump have real problems with suburban voters, when you add on Mark Robinson to suburban voters, it’s like spraying insect repellent on suburban, college-educated voters,” Jackson told the DC. “There’s no question in my mind that Mark Robinson leading the ticket in North Carolina for Republicans is hurtful to Donald Trump.”

Jon Green, an elections expert and professor of political science at Duke University, is not necessarily buying into the scenario’s possible “reverse coattails.”

“I think the Trump ties and sort of Mark Robinson being very much a Trump-aligned figure is likelier to hurt Robinson than it is to hurt Trump, if that makes sense. I think people are going to tend to evaluate the top of the ticket as the top of the ticket,” he asserted.

Shumaker went on to make the case that North Carolina’s presidential race, as of this writing, is leaning toward Trump and the gubernatorial race “should favor the Democrats,” however, there’s a caveat.

“The problem Josh Stein has is Joe Biden. The problem that Donald Trump has in North Carolina is Mark Robinson. Because the Democrats are going to try to link him to Mark Robinson’s radical, way-out positions, and hopefully fix their intensity problem,” Shumaker explained. “They’re gonna try to fix their intensity problem with social issues. Can they do that? Don’t know.”

The Daily Caller disclosed that there were 376,000 more Republican participants in North Carolina’s primary than there were Democrats when Trump stomped all over former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, winning by a stunning 51 points. Biden pulled in 87.3 points against the “no preference” option.

“Voters in North Carolina are quite experienced in splitting their tickets. And again, sure, if you wear a red MAGA hat, you’re not gonna split your vote, and a true blue Democrat isn’t neither. But there [is] a component of North Carolina voters that do,” Bullock went on to say in the interview. “You’re gonna see some share of that vote in North Carolina, you know, hopscotching down the ballot rather than just going, ‘bing, bing, bing, bing, bing’ for one party or the other.”

During the last presidential race, Biden was beating Trump almost the entire election cycle in the RCP average, with Trump only having a lead in 19 surveys. However, Trump has been leading Biden in every 2024 North Carolina poll.

“Early polls are what they are, and they should be interpreted sort of as nothing more and nothing less than early polls, right? State of the race where it is right now,” Green commented. “We know that a lot of people are not paying super close attention to politics right now, so there’s more room for movement I think now than there will be later on after the conventions, after people who don’t typically pay very close attention to politics start tuning in.”

Shumaker is convinced that if Biden beats Trump in North Carolina, “there’s no pathway for him to win the presidency.”

However, keep in mind that North Carolina has only elected a Democrat to the White House twice since 1964. The first was Jimmy Carter in 1976 and the other was Barack Obama in 2008.

Copyright 2024. RepublicanInsider.org

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