Appalachian North Carolina vs. Appalachian Virginia

[Miles]

Yet some geniuses at the NRSC thought an effective line of attack on Hagan would be the War on Coal.

[Miles]

I don't know about Southwestern VA, but Western NC is home to several colleges and universities, whose grad students and faculty members I imagine live across its various counties. This may cause the region to be more liberal than its Appalachian counterpart in Virginia.

Actually VA-09 has a good amount; Washington and Lee, Emory and Henry, Virginia Tech and Roanoke College are all located there.

[Miles]

This is part of the reason that Democrats shouldn't be as optimistic about NC as VA and FL (or maybe even GA) IMO.  There are still a lot of blue dog voters left in Appalachian and eastern NC so Republicans have plenty of room to grow with the rural vote to offset the new urban Dems unlike in neighboring states.

It should be noted that theseblue dog voters in WNC are a very small portion of NC's population.

Also, several WNC counties, such as Buncombe, Watauga, Transylvania, and Polk have a large leftist hippy-ish contingent which is obviously less willing to vote for the pubs.

Agreed on Appalachian NC, but I would be a lot more worried about greater SE NC slipping out from under Democrats over the next decade.  It has enough population to be relevant.  A lot of surprisingly rural areas there actually trended left in 2012, though.  NC is also diversifying more slowly than its neighbors.

Robeson and Cumberland Counties are growing and getting less white. New Hanover is slowly trending D, but Brunswick is getting wealthier and more conservative.

[Miles]

What about areas like Madison County?

Anyway, btw, does anyone know precisely why Henderson County is so pubbie? I know it has lots and lots of Floridian Retirees, but it isn't like there's a shortage of them in the other mountain counties. I don't think Greenville/Spartanburg/Asheville spillover is the answer, although I'm not sure. Unionist Stronghold?

Looking at some county maps from the late 19th/early 20th century, there seems to be case for this. It was usually more R than the counties surrounding it.