It kind of reminds me of a reverse North Carolina. Everyone insists that North Carolina is trending Democratic, but it has stubbornly 6 points to the right of the national popular vote four straight presidential elections and hasn't elected a Democrat to federal office since 2008.
North Carolina trended Democratic by more than 3 percentage points in 2004, by 3 points in 2008 and by 1 points in 2012. Then it had an almost negligible Democratic trend in 2016 and an even more negligible Republican trend in 2020.
So maybe North Carolina was indeed trending Democratic for a decade and then it has stopped?
The bottom fell out on Democratic performances with rural white voters in NC in 2016--there are a few counties which voted for Obama in recent memory which Trump won last year by a decent margin.
