"Curses" are not a substitute for political analysis.
Look at places like suburban Wake County and south central Charlotte, and most of rural eastern NC can't drop for the Democrats much further anyway because it has a significant black population. It's like a slower Georgia trend...really it just takes a small shove for it to go to Tilt D.
Cabarrus County is zooming left and will likely vote blue by 2028. Lots of black migration there, much like the Atlanta suburbs. Iredell doesn’t seem to be shifting more rightward either. The only thing that can save the NC GOP for the decade is the counties in the east getting more Republican and boomer retirements. The trend lines in Charlotte metro and Raleigh metro are ugly and not getting better.
I'm not super familiar with NC political geography, I picked those counties off the top of my head. The point is there are tons of counties like Iredell AFAIK, growing at a good clip while staying just as red in percentage, thus producing bigger raw vote margins. I don't think NC trends R but I don't think it'll necessarily trend D either.
