The state only voted 2% to the right of the tipping point in 2020 Pres, but most pundits seem to write it off and even criticize investment by Biden. They argue by the time he wins NC, states like GA and PA are already blue. However, I want to make a case for why tipping point NC more be more realistic than many here would expect.
In general, the Dem base in the state is mostly reliant on a combination of suburban/educated whites and southern black voters. These days, there isn’t as large of a non-college white presence as the midwestern swing states, nor as large of Hispanic presence as NV, AZ, and even GA. If the polling is to be believed and Biden is struggling with these groups, the impact in NC may be less pronounced.
Another factor is NC growth is generally really favorable to Dems - the 2 main areas of Dem support in the state - metro Raleigh and metro Charlotte - both have insane growth and have gotten bluer. Conversely, most of the rural areas where Rs rack up their biggest margins are stagnant or bleeding population. Rs have been able to stay viable in the state despite this growth in large part thanks to flipping many non-college whites, but there’s an argument they’re starting to approach a ceiling with those voters.
Another factor could be the competitive and high profile Governors race - if Biden truly is just super unexciting to a segment of left-leaning voters, this Governors race could be the difference between them showing up or not. Again the impact would be marginal but in this type of situation that can be huge.
Some may argue that NC’s large black population makes this tricky because black voters are expected to swing pretty hard right - however even if you believe black voters actually do swing like 10%+ right (I’m personally skeptical), there would be reason to believe southern blacks, especially rural and small town blacks that dominate the NC black vote, would be less affected.
Finally 16 EVs is quite substantial and it means there are more theoretical scenarios where NC could be the tipping point as opposed to a smaller swing state like Nevada
What do yall think?
The only possibly case is Trump win WI MI PA but lose GA AZ NV, so NC will be tipping point. While I think Trump wins NC before GA AZ NV almost for sure, I find it hard to see that he wins PA and MI before NC, unless polls significantly underestimated him in rustbelt once again, yet significantly overestimated him in sunbelt.
