North Carolina's Appalachian Drop-Off

[ElectionsGuy]

Conservatives have got to love the state of Tennessee right now. It's a well-populated state and very republican at the same time. The best part of the state (for Conservatives) is the Eastern Appalachian Mountains. This part is of the state is not only 65%+R, but well-populated at the same time. But when you go into North Carolina and look at it's Border Counties, you see a huge republican drop-off for certain counties.

Haywood: 55.9% Romney
Madison: 53.4% Romney
Yancey: 55.8% Romney
Watauga: 50.1% Romney

Across the border in Tennessee

Blount: 72.0% Romney
Sevier: 76.7% Romney
Greene: 72.2% Romney
Monroe: 71.8% Romney

And not to mention Ashville. Ashville is a city roughly half the size of Knoxville with about the same demographics, but it's much more democratic.

So why is this? I'm sure there are a few folks from North Carolina that can answer this. Thank You

[ElectionsGuy]

You only have to go back to 2000 to find the regions voting roughly the exact same way (still GOP), with the Republican trend in eastern Tennessee beginning in 2004 with favorite son Al Gore off the ticket (Edwards' impact in North Carolina seems negligible looking at the results).  Another thing to bear in mind is that the Obama campaign devoted considerable resources to North Carolina, and this includes even areas of the state they are not going to win, just to make the statewide total all the more likely to go their way.

I do see the same counties voting like this in '00 and '04 so I guess this is just one of the oddities in election politics.

[ElectionsGuy]

Summary:

So more hippy-like left wing groups, more colleges and universities, and native Americans in some cases. Very isolated locations that have kept the democratic tradition there for decades and not aligning with Tennessee in the pro-union fashion that they used to. Thanks psychicpanda and Sol for giving good answers.