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Uniquely Competitive North Carolina Emerges as Key 2024 Battleground_我的网站

匹诺曹

一 |

RALEIGH, N.C. – The 2024 election promises to feature several major battlegrounds, but for sheer breadth of competitive contests, North Carolina next year will be hard to beat.

It starts with the presidential race. Recent presidential contests in North Carolina have been close: In 2020, Donald Trump won North Carolina by about 74,000 votes out of more than 5.5 million cast. Experts expect a competitive race again in 2024.

In addition, a newly empowered GOP majority on the North Carolina Supreme Court is poised to redraw the congressional map to benefit Republicans, producing the possibility of competitive races.

Meanwhile, the parties will fiercely contest both chambers of the legislature, which the GOP currently controls by narrow supermajorities, thanks to a Democrat-to-Republican party-switcher in the state House earlier this year. That party switch, by state Rep. Tricia Cotham, now enables Republicans to enact a strongly conservative agenda over the vetoes of Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper if they wish.

Cooper, for his part, is term-limited, teeing up a knock-down, drag-out contest to succeed him, likely between Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein and Republican Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson.

And that isn’t it for falling dominoes: The decisions by Stein and Robinson to seek the governorship leave their old offices of attorney general and lieutenant governor up for grabs in 2024, joining the GOP-held offices of state treasurer and labor commissioner as open-seat contests. The Democratic-held offices of secretary of state and auditor and the Republican-held offices of schools superintendent, insurance commissioner and agriculture commissioner will also be contested in 2024, with varying degrees of competitiveness.

In other words, in 2024, North Carolina will be one of the centers of the political universe – important in part because it’s a uniquely competitive state.

“There’s no telling who will win in 2024, but I’d bet half-court tickets to the UNC-Duke game that it will be close and North Carolina will retain its title as the definition of ‘purple,’” says Chris Cooper, a Western Carolina University political scientist (and no relation to the governor).

In recent years, North Carolina has mostly hosted close statewide races. During the 2020 and 2022 elections, North Carolina held 16 federal and state races for statewide office – and no candidate in any of them won more than 54% of the vote.

In addition, unlike most states in this highly polarized age, North Carolina has elected a thorough mix of Democrats and Republicans to statewide executive offices, which suggests that voters in the state – or at least a crucial subset of them – are willing to split their tickets.

The Republicans have done best in Senate and presidential contests. In those races, the GOP has kept a consistent – if modest – edge. It’s been a decade and a half since a Democrat has won one of those races. The last to win were Kay Hagan for Senate and Barack Obama for president, both of them way back in 2008.

“North Carolina has proved to be a purple state, but not necessarily a swing state,” says Cooper, the political scientist. “The statewide outcomes have been among the closest in the country, but Republicans have found themselves just on the winning side of the razor’s edge for presidential and Senate elections.”

The most intriguing contrast one can draw for North Carolina is with one of its neighbors to the south. Could North Carolina follow Georgia’s path in voting blue for Senate and presidential elections?

For the better part of two decades, Georgia, like North Carolina, had voted consistently Republican in key federal races – until 2020. That year, Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock won uphill, and narrow, victories for Senate seats, while Biden was winning the state in the presidential race. In 2022, Warnock won another close election to a full six-year term.

In an era when urban areas have grown bluer by the year, Georgia has seen its major metro area – Atlanta – steadily move toward the Democrats. In 2000, metro Atlanta backed Republican George W. Bush by 4 points. By 2020, the Atlanta metro area backed Biden by 28 points, a whopping 32-point shift.

North Carolina’s biggest metro areas saw a similar pattern.

North Carolina’s Raleigh-Durham metro area backed Gore in 2000 by less than a point. Two decades later, Biden won it by 26 points. The state’s most populous county, Wake County (which includes Raleigh and Cary), favored Bush in 2000 by about a point, but backed Biden by 27.

Similar patterns held in the North Carolina portion of the Charlotte metro area. In 2000, Bush won the Charlotte metro area by 18 points. But by 2020, Biden won the region by 4 points – a 22-point shift. The state’s second largest county, Mecklenburg County (which includes Charlotte), voted for Bush by almost 3 points in 2000 but Biden by a massive 36 points.

Such shifts helped the Democrats narrow the statewide gap substantially in North Carolina. In 2000, Bush defeated Gore statewide by 13 points, whereas Trump defeated Biden by about 1 point.

But these shifts weren’t enough to tip the state to the Democrats in the presidential race. A big reason why: Raleigh-Durham and Charlotte don’t have as large a footprint in North Carolina as metro Atlanta does in Georgia.

In 2020, Atlanta’s metro counties accounted for just shy of a majority of votes cast in Georgia – 49%, up from 46% in 2000. So even as outlying Georgia was growing redder – backing Bush by 19 and Trump by 26 – Democrats were able to turn a 12-point statewide loss by Al Gore in 2000 into a narrow victory for Biden in 2020.

By contrast, the Raleigh-Durham and Charlotte metro areas account for a minority of the state’s voters, growing from 36% of the votes cast in 2000 to 42% in 2020.

In other words, in North Carolina, the Democratic gains in the two big metro areas were nearly canceled out by the large and growing GOP margins elsewhere.

“North Carolina has the second most rural voters in the country after Texas, so running up the score in Raleigh-Durham and Charlotte won't get you victory the way Atlanta does in Georgia,” says Cooper, the political scientist. “There’s been a massive Republican gain in rural areas”

Over the next quarter-century, Wake and Mecklenburg counties are projected to grow dramatically faster in population than most other North Carolina counties, according to calculations by the state’s Board of Science, Technology & Innovation. Over the long term, this could make the state bluer.

But for now, North Carolina’s political balance of power belongs in the hands of “countrypolitan" counties, a term coined by Mac McCorkle, a longtime North Carolina consultant who now teaches at Duke University's Sanford School of Public Policy, and Rachel Salzberg.

These 28 counties sit within the economic and commuting orbit of North Carolina’s metro areas, but they’re located on the outlying edge, and they lack the racial diversity, college attainment levels and higher incomes that increasingly align with voting Democratic.

By McCorkle’s and Salzberg’s calculations, “countrypolitan” counties backed Trump in 2020 by a gaping 63%-36% margin, and collectively they provided Trump with about 50% more raw votes than North Carolina’s 50 most rural counties did.

That’s a major reason why Republicans have remained modestly ahead in North Carolina, at least in high-profile federal races, experts say.

To do well in North Carolina, says Western Carolina’s Cooper, “Democrats don’t have to win the rural vote, but they have to avoid getting pummeled.”

This is the goal of Anderson Clayton, the newly installed head of the state Democratic Party. At 25, Clayton, an Appalachian State University graduate, is the youngest state Democratic chairman in the nation.

“One of the things that I think that I learned from being on national campaigns is that a lot of times the national party is not looking at rural places like they should be,” Anderson told an audience in Union County, according to The Washington Post. “They’re looking at it as a place of a problem. And for me, I got really frustrated with that. It was part of the thing that called me home.”

This advice doesn’t just hold for presidential and Senate races, political observers say. It will also help determine whether Democrats can stay competitive in North Carolina’s state-level offices or whether Republicans start running away with them.

Since the dawn of the 20th century, North Carolina has elected only three Republican governors – one for a term in the 1970s, one for two terms in the 1980s and 1990s, and one for a term in the 2010s.

Historically, the successful Democratic model for winning North Carolina gubernatorial races has been to nominate a candidate who can win in metro areas but who hails from less populated regions of the state and connects with voters there. A good example is the current governor, who helped his family farm tobacco while growing up.

But the pool of potential Democratic candidates from more rural areas “has dried up,” says Rob Schofield, the editor of the online publication NC Newsline. Lining up Democratic candidates to run everywhere, as Clayton seeks to do, will be challenging.

“That counts on people running even if they know they will lose and be sacrificed, which is a hard sell,” says Ferrel Guillory, an emeritus professor of political science at the University of North Carolina.

In any case, the likely 2024 Democratic gubernatorial nominee, Stein, is set to break his party’s historic mold. Stein, a former legislator who has won two terms as attorney general, grew up in Chapel Hill, home of the University of North Carolina, and earned his undergraduate degree from Dartmouth and a law degree and a master’s of public affairs from Harvard.

Meanwhile, Stein’s potential Republican opponent also represents departure from past Republican gubernatorial candidates, who have tended to be economic conservatives from metro areas: Robinson is an outspoken social conservative who has flirted with conspiracy theories, ranging from the moon landing to crisis actors in school shootings.

Robinson doesn’t have a clear path to the nomination. In the primary, he faces state Treasurer Dale Folwell, former Congressman Mark Walker, former legislator Andy Wells and retired health executive Jesse Thomas. But he’s considered the front-runner, due to a strong core of support in a state where, by law, 30% plus one is enough to win a primary.

If the race comes down to Stein and Robinson, as conventional wisdom suggests, “it will be an epic and titanic battle that will be bitterly divided and deeply polarizing,” says Michael Bitzer, a professor of politics and history at Catawba College. “Probably the most expensive gubernatorial race in the nation for next year, and it may break state records.”

One unknown for now is how the Republican supermajority flexes its expanded policy muscle.

After years of opposition, the GOP legislature in March passed legislation to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, and Cooper quickly signed it. But after Cotham’s party switch produced a supermajority, Republicans sidestepped Cooper’s veto and passed a 12-week abortion ban, which is being challenged in court.

Passage of the abortion ban could energize Democrats, as it has in other purple and even red states. This could be exacerbated if the GOP passes other laws popular with the party’s socially conservative base but unpopular among moderates. Robinson’s candidacy, too, risks scaring off Republican moderates.

“When the Republicans moved to find some way to accept Medicaid expansion, to me that reflected that, wow, these guys may be understanding their rough edges,” McCorkle says in an interview. “Then the abortion law happens and then Robinson happens. That could explode things.”

John Hood, president of the John William Pope Foundation, a grant-making foundation, says he believes Republicans in the legislature are “realistic.”

“They recognize that either Stein will be governor or Robinson will be governor, and they don’t trust either,” Hood says.

Ultimately, the noise from the presidential race, especially if Trump is the GOP nominee, could drown out everything else down-ballot.

“The national networks and media may be so consumed by the presidential election that state issues may not affect the public’s mind,” Guillory says.

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二 | “冷冷冷” “北京，你实在太冷了。” 话题登上热搜后，毛丽开始怀念月初的好天气，“那会是最舒服的温度。

三 | ” 她这样形容北京那段时间的天气：阳光、微风，穿一件薄外套就能在户外待上一整天。十天过后，北京气温骤降，有的地方甚至飘起小雪。根据北京发布，南郊观象台在10月20日6时26分记录到气温仅-0.5℃——这是北京今年立秋后气温首次跌破零度。

四 | 气温跌破冰点的时间，较常年11月8日提前近20天，为1951年以来，下半年并列第7早破零。北方多地气温也明显下降。据媒体报道，河南嵩山、洛阳等地10月20日迎来初雪，气温较前期下降8℃左右。吉林、河北、山西部分地区已出现明显降温。北京朝阳如今的街景图源：受访者气温持续下降所带来的影响，远不止寒意。中国气象局研究员、中国气象服务协会会长许小峰长期观察气候变化。在他看来，如今的气候变化不仅对人们带来挑战，也对城市运转提出了新的课题。

五 | 从个人的生活到城市的能源系统，这场“提前到来的冬天”，正考验着城市的应对能力。 10月18日，受较强冷空气影响，吉林、辽宁、京津冀等地降温明显。

六 | 据气象部门预计，10月24日前，北方大部分地方都会维持低温状态。当日，距离北京不到300公里的河北石家庄，高平一家人窝在屋里。当日气温显示8至11℃，可他觉得“体感就七八度”。那一整天，他把空调调到了20℃。到了晚上，因为担心不到4岁的孩子着凉，还把落灰多年的“小太阳”重新搬出来，让卧室保持温暖。 “电费都得多不少。” 他回忆，以往只有在11月上旬，也就是供暖前的过渡期才会这样。今年，他觉得“直接把秋天冻没了”。距离正式供暖还有二十多天，他感觉这些天有点难熬。住在吉林长春的李翔讯也遇上类似的难题。

七 | 雨雪加降温后，晚上气温跌至零下。

八 | 他说当地通知10月17日开栓供热，但他家的暖气管道出了问题，得等到21日才能修好。这些天，李翔讯只能靠空调和取暖器撑着，还让家人从安徽寄来了厚的羽绒服。应对寒冷，最显眼的开销自然就是电费增加。

九 | 但若细看一下账单，毛丽会发现开销不止这些。她是云南人，在北京待了五年。她发现每年入冬后，打车次数会明显上升。

十 | 比如去年10月，打车14次，花378元；到了12月，打车26次，花806元。

十一 | 而今年10月刚过半，她在打车上的支出已经超过500元。她说，如果提前供暖，相应的费用也可能会增加，“原来大概一季度两千多块，要是提前供暖可能也要多交钱了。

十二 | ”总之，毛丽觉得现在的天气变来变去，让人捉摸不透。她更怀念以往那种四季分明的感觉。对于许多北方居民来说，冬季提前不仅意味着气温骤降，更是一段生活节奏被打乱的日子——保暖设备、生活支出通通提速。冬季真的提前了？许小峰说，今年天气确实有所反常，北方的低温比以往提早了。这背后是极端性的气候波动的加剧。对于当地居民而言，需要适应和调整的过程。他分析，从今年夏季起，全国天气就呈现出异常状态——北方暴雨、南方高温、局地干旱。进入10月，北方气温断崖式下跌，南方依旧炎热，呈现“冰火两重天”的格局。 “这可以理解为气候波动性增强，而不是像以前一样，逐渐变冷或变热。” 许小峰进一步解释，正常来说，进入秋季后冷空气会逐步由北向南推进，全国整体气温随之下降，北方和南方都应逐步降温。但今年情况不同的是，冷空气团增多了，就像一辆货车压了太多货物，行驶不动。

十三 | 于是，就停在了北方地区，带来降温、降雨，甚至降雪，而南方地区温度也没往下走。不过，许小峰强调，目前气象数据尚不足以得出“冬季提前”的结论。“入冬的标准是需要有一个持续性的过程，只能说现在的气温达到了冬天的温度，但如果它的持续性不强，也就无法得出提前入冬的结论。” 中国科学院大气物理研究所季风系统研究中心副主任魏科向时代周报记者表示，极端天气的出现和频发，其本质原因还是全球气候变暖。许多人对于“变暖”的理解相对片面，认为气温升高就是变暖。但实际上，干旱、洪涝、寒冷都是“全球气候变暖”下的表现形式。“这类认知差异恰恰说明，公众对气候变化的了解还不够。” 受极端天气（暴雨）影响的村庄受冷空气持续影响，北方多地气温创今年新低。沈阳、银川等城市气温立秋后首次跌破冰点，北京南郊观象台也录得零下0.5℃的低温。有气象专家预计，今年北京入冬时间或会提前（常年平均入冬日为10月31日）。

十四 | 吉林多地已在10月15日左右陆续开始提前供暖，其中延吉更是连续第14年提前开栓供热。为此，很多人开始讨论北京是否会提前供暖。毛丽在社交媒体上看到了不少讨论帖，有的在讨论今年北京体感气温早就入冬了，有的说希望能提前供暖，即便是多交钱。据《北京日报》报道，北京法定供暖季为每年11月15日至次年3月15日，可以根据气象情况临时调整供暖时间。每年供暖前都会通过三次气象会商来判断未来天气状况。如连续五天平均气温低于5℃，即可启动供暖。北京朝阳区供热管理部门工作人员向时代周报记者表示，目前还没收到有关提前供暖的通知。据他了解，大部分小区都完成上水的准备工作，计划于11月15日启动供暖服务。

十五 | 如上级部门有任何调整，通知提前供暖，他们也会全力配合。此外，郑州热力公司工作人员在10月20日对媒体表示，目前并没有传达任何有关提前供暖的通知，也没得到指示说今年是否会提前供暖。《郑州市城市集中供热管理办法》未对“看天供暖”作出明确规定，仅明确本市集中供热期为11月15日至次年3月15日。提前或者延长供暖期，由当地市政府决定。许小峰说，供暖体系并非简单的系统，可以随时“开关”，而是涉及气象预测、能源调配、管网维护，排气放水等多重环节。频繁调整时间，会增加运行成本，也可能影响能源调度的稳定性。对城市的挑战气候变化对每一个人、每一座城市的影响都是具像化的。首先是能源。“提前供暖、频繁降温，意味着对煤炭、电力、天然气等能源的需求增加。

十六 | 部分城市需要临时调度储能资源，保证供热稳定。

十七 | 若冷空气持续，能源供应需求和压力也会被放大。

十八 | ”许小峰分析。以供暖系统为例，提前供暖会直接增加运营成本。新华网曾报道，以黑龙江省宁安市为例，全市城区集中供热建筑面积约381.2万平方米，刚开始供暖时，企业日均消耗煤炭约550吨，煤炭加人工、水电日均成本约70万元。提前供暖的成本增加，有的是地方进行补贴，有的则是企业自己承担。黑龙江一家供热企业负责人接受新华网采访时曾算过一笔账：当地供热煤炭21.7万吨，支付煤炭资金预计2.1亿元，人工、水电、维修等费用约0.8亿元，总费用2.9亿元，收取供热费约1.98亿元。在没有补贴的情况下，亏损约0.92亿元。如果提前供暖，亏损还会继续扩大。上述报道中还指出，当时受寒潮影响，多地提前供暖的情况持续增加，还有一些城市已连续多年提前启动供热。比如天津自2016—2017年采暖期以来，已连续6年提前供暖；北京在2016年、2019年两次打破11月15日的法定供暖时间。供热企业经营压力上升。前瞻产业研究院发布的《2025年中国城市供热行业全景图谱》显示，据中国城镇供热协会数据，在统计范围内的133家企业中，集中供热行业全年收入约3600亿元，平均利润率为-1.0%。也就是说，不少企业是处在盈亏边缘的。其次是农业。10月20日，据大象新闻，河南多地最高气温不足10℃。其中三门峡、洛阳、信阳南部等地的部分县市还会有中雨，高海拔山区也可能出现雨夹雪，最低气温仅有2℃。

十九 | 许小峰说，低温和早霜可能打乱秋收节奏，影响农作物产量。气候的不确定性，使农民在播种和采收时间上的判断更困难。对此，河南省农业农村厅负责人表示，秋收进度较常年整体偏慢5至7天，比去年同期慢17%。当地正统筹调度收割机、烘干设备等，加快抢收、烘干、抢运，并将制定小麦晚播的方案，派出专家指导组进行指导。受极端天气影响的农作物还有医疗服务。秋冬季是呼吸道疾病高发季节。而气温骤降，流感、呼吸道感染的患者也会增多，城乡居民尤其是儿童医疗卫生服务需求明显增多，与之对应的公共医疗服务体系需要更灵活的应对能力。魏科认为，面对异常的天气变化，需要适应与减缓同步进行。“从适应角度，人和城市都要调整原有的状态；从减缓角度，社会要更快推进绿色转型，也就是碳中和。” 他提到，科学界对气候危机的预警早已存在，只是公众容易忽视。