Biden lost the Tar Heel state to Donald Trump by just 1.4 percentage points in 2020, and a Democrat at the top of the ticket hasn’t managed to turn North Carolina blue since Barack Obama did in 2008. Now Biden’s team sees opportunity in 2024 amid a fresh abortion ban, a contentious, expensive gubernatorial race and steady population growth that has ballooned urban and suburban areas.
I’m not confident that the state would go solidly blue if it wasn’t for gerrymandering.
While gubernatorial and council of state elections have had a decent amount of Dems, republicans have enjoyed more success at the national level in the Senate. The last dem was Kay Hagan, in 2008 and got the voter turnout from Obama… plus running against Elizabeth dole who wasn’t even someone anyone recognized as a North Carolinan.
At the state level, in the house of reps, the 120 districts do show gerrymandering, but the effect is limited, since the districts are smaller than the US House, where they basically lump Raleigh and Durham in as one. There’s a hell of a lot of red out there.