FiveThirtyEight on last nights 2 for 2 North Carolina Republican wins in CD 3 and 9…..
On Tuesday, North Carolina played host to the most closely watched election since the 2018 midterms. On paper, it was Republicans who emerged victorious, going 2-for-2 in two separate congressional elections. But there was also a silver lining for Democrats — their final vote margin in the night’s marquee race was much bluer than the district’s baseline partisanship.
That race was the do-over election in North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District, where alleged election fraud tainted the results of the 2018 contest to such a degree that the state elections board opted to hold a new election. After the Republican candidate got just 905 more votes than the Democrat in the 2018 election, Republicans pulled off a clearer win this year: Based on unofficial results as of 11:30 p.m. on Tuesday night, Republican state senator Dan Bishop defeated Democrat Dan McCready 51 percent to 49 percent. However, Democrats did 11 points1 better in the district than we’d expect them to in a neutral political environment, as this is normally a heavily Republican district; it is 14 points redder than the nation as a whole, according to FiveThirtyEight’s partisan lean metric.2 And Trump won the district by 12 points in 2016.
The results also represent a continuation of the mini-realignment we’ve seen in the Trump era of suburbs getting bluer and rural areas moving even more toward the GOP….
There are 3 GOP held districts within a 50 mile radius of me that are less Republican than NC-9.
And the one that had the atrongest Republican bent according to Cook PVI–(MO-2– R+7)–is actually less rural in makeup than the ones in Illinois with R+2 and R÷5 ratings. Comsidering that all three may be at about the same level of vulnerability considering the rate of GOP bleeding in the suburbs.
Of course this is at least somewhat candidate dependent too.