Democrats had believed that population growth in North Carolina's most populated areas would help stave off the red tide, but another trend may dash those hopes altogether.
The Cook Political Report changed North Carolina from a right-leaning state to a swing state based on demographics, analysis Former President Donald Trump has also been gaining support in Republican-leaning areas of the state, according to NBC polling analyst Steve Kornacki.
“The Republicans rose to power. They kind of cancelled each other out.”
Kornacki noted that Democrats were able to shrink Trump's lead in the state from about 175,000 votes in the 2016 election to just 75,000 votes over Biden in 2020. This led many Democrats to believe that Vice President Kamala Harris might be able to flip the state to the Democrats.
“One thing we're seeing is that Democratic support is becoming increasingly concentrated geographically in metropolitan areas, in suburban areas with high concentrations of college educated people,” he explained.
But despite growing Democratic support in the state's urban and metropolitan areas, Trump has been able to close the gap by pushing Republican parts of the state further to the right, Kornacki said.
In one example cited in the analysis, former President Barack Obama lost Hamilton County by just eight points in 2016, while Trump was able to win the county by 25 points in 2020.
While the county is small in population, Kornacki said it could stand in as a proxy for an entire region of the state that leans Republican, with fewer people but more in total numbers.
“In smaller counties, in more geographically dispersed areas, Republicans made gains. They pretty much cancelled each other out there,” he said.
Kornacki added that if Democrats can pick up Democratic votes in more populous areas, they may have a chance to win the state and move its 11 electoral votes from the red column to the blue column.
MSNBC news video here Kornacki's analysis On YouTube.
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