North Carolina Miscellaneous
http://publicpolicypolling.blogspot.com/http://publicpolicypolling.blogspot.com/I;m surprised that the Philadelphia Phillies don't "phigure" in.
Baseball loyalties are strong among migrants. If in your formative years you grow up as a Tiger fan and have Al Kaline as a hero and you move to southern California you don't become a Dodgers fan just because such is convenient. You may maintain your loyalty for a long time, and you will be delighted when Justin Verlander strikes out the side in the presence of friends at an interleague game between the Tigers and Dodgers. You might order a special satellite or cable package that gets you the sports feeds from Detroit. Detroit may be a woesome place, but except for the putrid Lions who have no recent tradition of anything other than last-place and near-last-place finishes, the sports teams (especially if you add in the college Michigan Wolverines) are or have recently been quite good.
But there is no convenient major league team to cheer in North Carolina. North Carolina was long closest to the Baltimore Orioles, Cincinnati Reds, and Atlanta Braves by default. Watching live major-league baseball if one lives in North Carolina still implies a long and difficult drive. One had to drive through Greater Washington as well as the whole of Virginia to see an Orioles game and still must. Atlanta is a difficult drive in itself after a drive on I-85 or mountainous driving on US 19. Charlotte is probably big enough to support a major league baseball team, whether through an expansion or a move.
The awful Washington Nationals are slightly closer to North Carolina than are the Baltimore Orioles, but they are awful and have given North Carolinians little cause for becoming fans. I can imagine some transplanted New Yorkers and Pennsylvanians to visit Washington to see a major-league baseball game, but then to see "their" Mets or Phillies. Maybe there are some Giants or Cubs fans who do much the same.
But this is a forum on politics and what comes closest to politics -- these days, demographics, and not baseball. North Carolina has recently attracted great numbers of migrants from outside North Carolina, and such people carry their voting habits with them. If they are from New England, greater New York City, Greater Chicago, or California, then that suggests how the state can shift even if the political views of people who have been there for a long time... don't. If they were liberals in Greater Cleveland, then they are still liberals in Charlotte.
