From Jesse to Barack

Helms, not Jackson.

Yes, North Carolina just 12 years ago voted to re-elect Jesse Helms to the US Senate for a fifth term. On Tuesday, the same state added its 15 electoral votes to Barack Obama’s column.

That’s change.

North Carolina, like its neighbor to the north, is a state in transition. North Carolina has long held a reputation as one of the most liberal states in the South. I’ve always used the Jesse Helms presence as counter-evidence. Indeed, Tennessee produced far more moderate – even liberal – politicians in the post-World War Two era than North Carolina. Tennessee had Frank Clement, Estes Kefauver and both Al Gores (Sr. and Jr.). The prominent Republicans in Tennessee were moderate by Southern standards – Howard Baker, Lamar Alexander, Jimmy Quillen, Jimmy Duncan. North Carolina had Jesse.

But today things have reversed themselves. As I drive down the hill toward my street in Maryville I can see Gregory Bald in the distance. At 4949 feet, Gregory Bald is one of highest natural bald-tops in the Appalachian Mountains and a truly beautiful spot in Great Smoky Mountain National Park. It’s also on the state line between Tennessee and North Carolina. As Sarah Palin would say, I can see North Carolina from my house (maybe I can be governor).

But today, sitting in blood red East Tennessee – part of the “McCain belt” of Upper South states that actually got redder this year – it’s amazing to see a blue state in the distance. And a blue state that I did my little part to canvass. Indeed, the county on the other side of the mountain – Swain County – voted for McCain over Obama by a mere 96 votes; my county went 69% for McCain. It really is different over there.

But it’s also very different over in North Carolina today than just a few years ago. The state has been transformed over the last few decades by new migrants coming from elsewhere in the country. As the state GOP fell further into the hands of Christian Right militants, moderate suburbanites in Charlotte, Greensboro and Raleigh-Durham turned to the Democratic Party. Newer migrants along the Atlantic coast and in the mountains of Buncombe and Jackson Counties similarly turned the state blue. And then, of course, there was the increased black turnout across the state.

Will the formula last? Will North Carolina turn permanently to the Democratic Party, as Virginia seems to have done? My guess is that the trend is real, though a bit early. Democrats won up and down the ticket in North Carolina, and the gains were in the same sorts of suburbs that have gone blue in the Midwest, Mid-Atlantic and Northeast. Indeed, even the Atlanta, Houston, Dallas, Louisville and Nashville suburbs have shown movement to the Democratic Party for the first time. The old Sun Belt home of conservative Republicanism is facing the same fate as DuPage County, IL, Oakland County, MI, Hamilton County, OH, Fairfax County, VA, Montgomery County, PA and Nassau County, NY. More diverse than ever before, socially moderate, young and culturally vibrant, these areas of growth have turned from small-government conservatism to the new Democratic Party. Since this trend began in the 1990s, we’ve seen no evidence of it reversing course. Instead, the suburban move to the Democratic Party has simply expanded into the New South.

What state will fall next? Georgia? Texas? What will the Republican Party do without Sunbelt suburbanites?

For now, the Tar Heel State is Carolina Blue.