Most vulnerable Southern state for Republicans

[Skill and Chance]

Oh it is definitely affecting the south, including Atlanta and Houston already. The Dallas and Phoenix metro areas are still soo staunchly Republican they aren't about to change any time soon. Both have diverse, liberal enclaves, but they're only a tiny fraction of the population. You also don't notice it as much in the south as a lot of places because the states aren't swing states for the most part (except VA, NC as noted).

Well, Dallas has a Great Plains component and the Plains are if anything shifting a bit R right now.  GA might accelerate past NC in the next couple of elections with the changes in the electorate there.  I'd also expect the Mountain West to sour on Democrats in a trend sense the longer they remain in power.

[Skill and Chance]

Cleveland is still the Democratic stronghold of Ohio and will almost certainly remain so for a long time, but it's not because of an influx of liberal gentry, it's heavily Democratic because it has a very large blue collar industrial population and a large black population. It's a union vote Democratic area. It's slowly shrinking in population and the west side will probably have a Pittsburgh-like phenomenon in 30 years or so, but it has more liberal eastern suburbs and a larger black population than Pittsburgh so I can't see it trending quite as hard.

Cleveland's history is that of immigrant waves coming and settling in little ethnic neighborhoods built around a church or two nearby a factory. During the 60s and 70s, the combination of shuttered industry and racial tensions started the suburbanization process and caused people to begin fleeing the metro area. It was managed much better than Detroit and the city itself actually has a budget surplus and can function as a government, but much of the city is still a shadow of its former self. The Republicans have made inroads in the white ethnic groups, mainly because of social conservatism (ie. abortion, gay marriage, etc) but will have a very hard time actually winning there because of free trade and union issues. As a result, a lot of the more working class areas vote more lopsidedly in favor of the Democrats on the local level than the presidential level.

Also I used to live in Cleveland

Its a shame what happened to the so-called "Rust Belt". Those cities have by far the coolest skylines, and are in my opinion the most beautiful cities in America. I like "old" cities. Unfortunately, even with 5 decades of decline brought by unionism, they still seem not to learn. Whilst Whites down South have long shifted to the GOP, many ethnic Whites up there seem to be very stubborn going Republican. I'd say even the old southern Whites were not that stubborn leaving the Dems.

Think about it from the perspective of the workers. Many of them were employed on a line somewhere in a manufacturing plant doing the same job every day for years and years and thanks to the union, were able to live a reasonably comfortable 1950s style middle class lifestyle to raise their children. Then from 1960-1990, globalization slowly became a reality in a ton of industries, and they suddenly had to be able to compete with poorer countries around the world. Plants shuttered, industries collapsed, cities fell apart, and many of the workers hadn't accrued the necessary skills in their old assembly line jobs to compete in the information age. The unions, for all their ills, at least represented the worker's interests in some capacity, while no one else in the system did whatsoever. The unions were part of the problem in many ways, as they often bargained for unsustainable pensions and often took layoffs rather than paycuts (it's arguable depending on the circumstance which would be a better choice). But the mentality here of the unions as the enemy is a huge part of the reason why the white ethnic rust belt Democrats haven't become Republicans. Most people know the unions are flawed in many ways, but to so many workers, the unions, whatever they are, aren't the enemy. There are a lot of pro-life retired autoworkers in northern Ohio who vote straight-ticket Democrat every time. Why? Abortion doesn't affect them personally, the chances of their pension getting sliced does.

Now, the Democrats haven't shown lately any particular tendency to care much about the demographic I'm outlining here either. Eventually that will come back to bite them, and eventually the old union manufacturing types will die out. The question then becomes where their children end up adopting their parents' religious/moral beliefs or their partisan identification. It's not really a dichotomy either, people fall along a spectrum in between. It isn't a matter of making a play for them or not, like this forum often tends to think. The unions aren't nearly as important as they once were, which almost certainly benefits the Republicans. But the voter demographic I've been discussion here still isn't going to suddenly view the Republicans as acting on their behalf either. If anything, they'd be very unenthusiastic Republican voters.

Well, I'm not totally sure about that.  Union voters in urban OH/MI/WI did seem legitimately grateful for Obama's leadership on the auto bailout (although from a purely economic perspective it probably wasn't in the country's best long term interest).  I think the financial crisis and Obama's overall positive handling of the response will keep a lot of union households voting Dem for another generation.  As long as Obama stays out of Bush territory, the next generation will more evenly divided which isn't enough to counteract the New Deal level of Dem voting among people who came of age under Bush.  The Midwest could swing as a block the next time the economy crashes, but not until then.  I would favor outreach to the Bush-Obama states if the economy is still "eh, ok" where there is opportunity at the margins just by reaching out on 1-2 important cultural issues.  This could also pull Florida back to the right, which needs to be a top short-term goal.

[Skill and Chance]

Even though this poll is already nine years old, the answers are still correct...

Except for Arkansas. Georgia is probably a lot more dangerous for the GOP.

I might actually be more worried about Georgia than North Carolina right now:

1. There are still significant Blue Dog rural Democrat pockets in NC that haven't switched sides yet- enough to control multiple CDs under the old Dem gerrymander.  This will give Republicans a buffer against more Northern transplants moving in.  In GA, white voters outside of Atlanta are already near unanimous R as of 2012 and any Dem gains in Atlanta metro will translate statewide.

2.  The demographics are changing significantly faster in GA than NC.

3.  A future Dem governor in GA would be able to veto 2021 redistricting, unlike in NC.