Politics Counts: NC starting to look like Va
Published October 10, 2014
by Dante Chinni, The Wall Street Journal, October 9, 2014.
Less than four weeks before Election Day, North Carolina’s Senate race is still close, with incumbent Democrat Kay Hagan holding on to a slim, but steady, lead in most polls. To many watchers that’s something of a surprise, considering how the state narrowly went for Republican Mitt Romney in 2012.
But if Ms. Hagan manages to hold on and carry the state for the Democrats, 2014 may be remembered as the year North Carolina became the next Virginia – the neighboring state to the north that has undergone big demographic changes that shifted its politics from red to purple to blue.
The two states share a lot of commonalities that suggest a similar shift is on in North Carolina. In fact, demographically they look like close siblings. Both have large African American populations and similarly-sized growing Hispanic populations. Both are growing faster than the national average.
But outside the basics, other data show that North Carolina is moving in Virginia’s direction in a more crucial way. It is adding well-educated professionals to a metropolitan area that is developing its own left-leaning politics.
In Virginia that area is the area around Washington, D.C., known as Northern Virginia, or NoVa for short. In North Carolina that area is Research Triangle, home to the state capital and three big universities – the University of North Carolina, North Carolina State and Duke.
In 2012, President Barack Obama won Virginia by 4 points and lost North Carolina by 2 points, but the votes in NoVa and Research Triangle looked remarkably similar. Mr. Obama won 57% the vote coming out of the counties and independent cities that comprise NoVa and he won 56% of the vote coming out of the counties in Research Triangle.
Research Triangle doesn’t hold the same percentage of the North Carolina’s population and NoVa does of Virginia’s, but both are growing.
On the state level, the impact of those growing areas is noticeable in the number of people with a bachelor’s degree or higher.
In 2013, 34.7% of Virginians had a bachelor’s degree or more, up from 29.5% in 2000. In North Carolina, those figures are 26.8% in 2013 and 22.5% in 2000. North Carolina’s current bachelor’s-plus number is nearing Virginia’s 2000 number.
All these figures are key to keep in mind as Election Day approaches.
Who will win the Senate? See the latest polls and enter our contest.
For Sen. Hagan, bringing out the vote in Research Triangle will be key, particularly in Wake County, which is home to N.C. State and Raleigh, the state capital, and almost one million people. In 2008 and 2012, Mr. Obama won that county, the second biggest in the state, by more than 10 points. But in 2010, Republican Sen. Richard Burr eked out a win there.
But the stakes in North Carolina may be much bigger than 2014, with ramifications for 2016 and beyond, when you look at the way the state is growing.
Consider Virginia’s 2014 senate race. There, incumbent Democrat Sen. Mark Warner looks to be walking to re-election in an increasingly blue state that was once consistently a battleground.
If Ms. Hagan, an incumbent Democrat, pulls out a win in 2014 – a midterm election marked by high “wrong-track” numbers, an unpopular Democratic president in the White House and the virtual certainty that Democrats will lose seats in the Senate – it maybe a sign that North Carolina voters can look north to Virginia and see a glimpse of their future.
Dante Chinni writes Politics Counts as a regular Capital Journal feature. Mr. Chinni is the director of the American Communities Project at American University, which examines different types of communities across the U.S.
October 10, 2014 at 9:16 am
Norm Kelly says:
More people with Bachelors degrees in NoVa & RTP? This is a good thing?
Too many people graduating from liberal colleges/universities with majors in liberalism hasn't done much good for the northeast or for California. What makes anyone think this trend is good for NoVa or will be good for RTP?
It used to be that as you aged you became more conservative because you realized your idealistic youth was full of ignorance. Now it's becoming that as you age, you stop thinking for yourself, stop relying on yourself, or at least expect others to stop relying on themselves, and hope that others allow you to think for THEM. As you become more liberal, you decide that it's important that you protect other people. Things like insisting that bicycle riders wear helmets. No one should be allowed to drink more than 16 ounces of soda at any one time. e-Cigs are dangerous and must be controlled. And the socialist list goes on and on and on and on...
It sure does seem that socialists have no end to how they want to control other people's lives. It sure seems that socialists have no concept of history. It sure seems that socialists can't even look at the world around them and realize what failure looks like.
Where has the MOST prosperity happened in the world? Has it been in either socialist or fascist countries? Or has it been in the most free nation in the world, the US? I know, every lib who stumbled across this post just blew a major vein in their head! Too bad. Not much of a loss! But the truth is that every nation has made mistakes. But it's also true that the US has been the most productive nation in the world while we were the freest nation in the world. And, to further irritate low-information lib-types, we have also been the nation most dedicated to spreading freedom and independence around the world. Contrary to popular lib 'thought' processes these days - term used extremely loosely! - we are not in the habit of occupying other nations. The French do this. The English do this. And sometimes the Spanish do this. The difference is that the US brings freedom and prosperity to other nations. The French strip a nation bare of it's valuables and values. The English enslave the native population so they can take advantage of the resources in the district. The US (normally) frees enslaved peoples. The US (normally) re-develops nations. The US (normally) helps native populations to get themselves out of poverty, out of dependence, free of their oppressors.
So, somewhat off topic, but because we are discussing libs & their attitudes, it's not far off at all. Socialism dies by design. Socialists moving to our area are simply taking your problems with you when you leave the area you destroyed to the area you prefer to be in. So, if you left the area where you were, for whatever reason, to move to an area that you believed was better, then why on earth are you bringing your destructive attitudes with you? If it wasn't ideal where you were, transforming the area you move to so that it's like the area you left is counterproductive. Both for you cuz you were dissatisfied with the area you left, as well as for those of us already here who are quite content with our current environment. Yankee, go home rings as true today as it did when first coined. It could be changed slightly, but doesn't need to be in order to be true. It COULD be 'Lib go home'. But since most of the ones moving here bring their lib attitude with them, they both work, though 'lib' may be a more appropriate label.
