Of the competitive states, this is the one I'm most worried about for Democrats in the medium-long term when it comes to state control.
What makes NC unique is their legislature is uniquely powerful and statewide offices relatively weak. In the state legislature, the threshold for a veto-proof majority is only 3/5th in both chambers, and even then there are quite a lot of things the Governor can't veto - a big one being maps. Even if Republicans only hold narrow majorities and Dems control all the statewide offices, Republicans still have effective control of redistricting.
North Carolina political geography isn't great for Democrats and honestly kind of becoming worse as they become more concentrated in a few cities and Republicans peel off a lot of the more marginal rural seats bleeding black population. In order for Dems to win the State House on the current map, they basically have to have a clean sweep of everything remotely winnable. On the State Senate map it's nearly impossible without some major re-alignment.
Obviously the reason Republicans were able to gerrymander the maps was because Republicans gained control of the State Supreme Court in 2022, and in order for Democrats to regain control they basically have to clean-sweep the Supreme Court races until 2028 with only 1 failure. In a state that tends to have an R tilt, that's a pretty tall order. Republicans strategically made the State Supreme Court races partisan so that they would have an easier time maintaining control of the Court. And if they feel that Democrats are in striking distance to flipping back the Court, why won't they just change things again - perhaps make gerrymandered state supreme court districts?
How can Democrats come back in NC?
Simple, elect Stein in 2024 and break the supermajority for now, which goes through flipping suburban house seats in Mecklenburg and Wake. Dems already lost all the marginal black belt seats in 2022 and the GOP have exactly 3/5 of the vote in both chambers.
