Minnesota and North Carolina

[AGA]

Are these states trending in any direction? Some people here insist that the former is trending R along with the rest of the Midwest while the latter is trending D, although both have been stable in recent years.

[neostassenite31]

In the long, long term (decades), the prevailing hypothesis is still that MN will ultimately trend R while sunbelt states such as NC ultimately trend D, but at a minimum such a prognostication is not supported by data coming out of this election. 

This election, MN swung 5.6 points left while NC swung 2.3 points left, so technically MN trended 3 points more to the left than NC this cycle. The "ultimate" question will only be answerable with more elections under the belt and depends on how demographics changes pan out in these two states over the next decade

[TopShelfGoal]

NC trended D between 2001 and 2012 relative to national popular vote and quite significantly so.

In 2000 election it was R+13

In 2004 it was R+10

In 2008 it was R+7.3

In 2012 it was R+5.94

In 2016 it was R+5.7

This year it will be around R+5.6 (based on Nate Silver's estimate of Biden +4.3 nationwide when all the counting

So as you can see it was trending D heavily and has stagnated the last two cycles. It remains to be seen if that stagnation is temporary or more permanent. The urban areas in NC continue to grow and I am not sure how much more Rs can rely on rural/exurban vote to counter that.