The NCGOP’s big county problem
The N&O slipped up and actually did some decent reporting:
While Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper is expected to clash with the Republican-controlled General Assembly over the next several months, he has two other political challenges:
Most of the state is Pat McCrory territory, geographically speaking.
And North Carolina is becoming increasingly difficult to govern because it is split into two halves divided along geographic, racial, education and income lines.
That’s the analysis of county voting results in the November election by Joseph Keefer, a Chapel Hill consultant who does quantitative research.
Cooper won by just 10,227 votes out of 4.7 million votes cast.
He defeated one-term Republican incumbent McCrory in all of the seven most populous counties — a combined 63 percent to 37 percentage margin. That’s Mecklenburg, Wake, Guilford, Forsyth, Cumberland, Durham and Buncombe counties.
McCrory defeated Cooper by 58 percent to 42 percent in the remaining 93 counties combined, where Cooper’s performance was low even in counties
with relatively large populations. Keefer says that could indicate more of a “mega-counties versus the rest of the state” dynamic than the traditional urban versus rural.
The counties that benefited Cooper tended to be home to people with higher incomes and education levels, and they had higher black populations. Conversely, Cooper typically lost in counties with lower black populations and counties that are suffering economically.
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I know. That last part sounds like the writer is suggesting the NCGOP has cornered the market on cross-burning dumbasses. But the fact that Cooper lost 93 of 100 counties is breath-taking. The areas Cooper was strongest in tend to attract people who are 
new to the state. Unfortunately, the news they get typically comes from a filthy lying McClatchy publication or the equally dubious WRAL-TV.
These people haven’t been in-state long, and are getting “educated” by these leftist propagandists. The answer is not to turn hard left to pick these people up. It’s not always safe to assume these counties are overwhelmingly liberal. Granted, there are a lot of libs there. But it looks like we just need to figure out how to pick off 10 to 15 thousand of them across seven counties.
The powers-that-be in the NCGOP, if they want the keys to Blount Street back, need to figure out a way to break through the wall of propaganda surrounding these counties with a little common sense. You can start by actually standing for something, and pushing a solid, formal slate of ideas through the General Assembly.
I know this site has had some great success in Mecklenburg County. We’ve even heard in recent months from some people claiming to be Thom and Susan Tillis’s neighbors in Mecklenburg. Said one of those folks:
“Your site has been a God-send. We’ve heard so little about [Tillis]. You don’t see him, it seems, unless he wants some money from you. We’ve thought long and hard about taping a one hundred bill to his front door, so he’ll stay home more.”
Another alleged neighbor told us they have gone as far as printing out posts from this site and distributing them in mailboxes throughout the community.
Looking at the numbers, if Pat had just gotten a slightly higher percentage in the 93% of the state that already supported him it would have been a landslide in his favor. (This assumes that the 90,000 votes they “found” would not have become 200,000-300,000+ votes for Ol’ Roy). It just goes to show what being spineless on issues important to most people gets you.
It’s off the mark to suggest that Pat McCrory fell to an inherent numbers disadvantage which is worsening for the NCGOP with the passage of time. Were that true, why did Dan Forrest actually improve his electoral performance over his 2012 showing? I can think of at least four different constituencies that supported McCrory in 2012, that also dumped him in 2016. Everyone of them was the result of some unforced error on McCrory’s part. There’s a lesson in there, but I doubt the NCGOP leadership is paying attention. We’ll know for sure when the House and Senate caucuses start talking HB2 repeal again.
This is why the state needs a state electoral college making each of the 100 counties worth 1 point to the winner in each county and the one with the most points wins…. This should be used for all state wide races …… I am sure it would not happen but it is how I think it should
and the NCGOP should change the plan of org to vote for chairman and vice chair and national committee man and women this way thus also taking the weighted voting from the big counties out of the equation
All of the counties Cooper won also have substantial campuses of the UNC system. These campuses have become liberal incubators for the Democrat Party. The GOP hasn’t figured this out yet.
Recheck those figures. Cooper didn’t lose 93 of 100 counties. He lost the total of 93 counties when vote totals were combined. I like the idea of an electoral college system for electing our Governor, while the Lt Governorship is eliminated
Eliminating odd-numbered year elections would solve the “big County” problem, by forcing liberals to choose between their big city council offices, and state offices. But big city ‘conservatives’ in the legislature won’t vote to un-do the costly and under-represented odd-year municipal elections because their grip on power over the GOP depends on it.