Even if they were, they’d still lose TITANIUM TILT R NC by R+1.2937302843901
All kidding aside, I like how people are now acting like NC is a considerably more R state than WI/AZ just because Biden barely lost the former while narrowly winning the other two states. Even the House PV (which I realize isn’t a perfect metric, but certainly more pertinent here than in IA) was as D in NC as in AZ and more D than in WI even after you adjust for the uncontested NC-12. Yes, Republicans can’t afford to lose much more ground in Maricopa, but I’d be sounding the alarm bells over some of those internal swings/trends & population shifts in NC if I was a Republican strategist. There’s a feasible path to winning back AZ (with some combination of clawing back lost ground among seniors and R-leaning independents, making slight inroads into the Hispanic vote, attracting more R transplants/retirees than NC,
maybe narrowing D margins in the Native American areas) and at least keeping that state competitive, but once those TX-style margins in exurban NC start drifting toward GA-type margins, it’s going to be hard for the GOP to retain NC. Their long-term viability in NC is really on a knife-edge at this point because it’s very doubtful that the rural areas can save them in the long run. Republicans also performed better in down-ballot races in AZ/Maricopa County than Trump, and while local races indeed aren’t always comparable to federal elections, it does feel like Trump
was a particulary bad R candidate for AZ. This doesn’t mean that AZ isn’t trending D, but I don’t think it’s headed the way of GA either, at least not yet.
I strongly disagree with the notion that Republicans should be more worried about AZ than NC — they should be equally if not more concerned about the electoral trajectory of NC than that of AZ.