Over the past few decades there have been some universal truths in North Carolina politics. They vote Republican for President and Democrat for state offices. The Republican candidate has won the state’s electoral votes in the last seven Presidential elections. Conversely, the Democrats have held the Governor’s mansion for the past 20 years as well as the State Legislature for most of that time.

However, the state has been morphing rather quickly from a traditional southern state of blue collar workers to a virtual melting pot of migrants from all over the country and abroad. It is now a conglomerate of white collar yuppies, big banking barons, and “techie” nerds, mixed with the natives. In other words, it’s not your father’s North Carolina, which may explain the surprise I had when I read yesterday’s Rasmussen Report:

Hillary Clinton is competitive in the state against four leading Republican Presidential candidates. The former First Lady has a two-point edge over Mitt Romney (42% to 40%) and trails Rudy Giuliani by a statistically insignificant single percentage point (Giuliani 40% Clinton 39%).

She also trails John McCain by five (45% to 40%) and Mike Huckabee by seven (46% to 39%).

Against all four Republicans, Clinton’s support is steady and ranges from a low of 39% to a high of 42%.

Hillary leading in North Carolina?

North Carolina voters also have two major statewide races to look forward to in 2008.

In the gubernatorial contest, Pat McCrory, a Republican who just won his seventh term as mayor of Charlotte, has a three-point margin over two possible Democratic nominees. McCrory leads both Lieutenant Governor Beverly Perdue and State Treasurer Richard Moore by identical margins of 42% to 39%.

So we now have a Democrat leading the Presidential race and a Republican who hasn’t even declared his candidacy yet leading the gubernatorial race.

All of these are very close percentages of course, but I think it reflects the swiftly changing demographics in the state. Population just recently passed the 9 million mark and the state passed New Jersey last year, becoming the tenth largest. The state overall has always been purple, so to speak, as Democrats do outnumber Republicans but these are the old school socially conservative Democrats that tend to be to the right of the national party explaining their preference for Republicans at the Federal level, but still electing the socially conservative Democrats in the state party to fill local offices. With the influx of mostly northerners to the state, who tend to be more liberal in their social views, I think we are starting to witness the effects, each side countering out the other leaving more centrist candidates to be desired perhaps. McCrory is more of a moderate Republican with a mayoral history of using government to guide and shape the economy and Senator Clinton, while certainly no moderate, does radiate a more centrist impression of herself when compared to Obama and Edwards. This could explain my theory.

In any case, the North Carolina GOP had better learn a lesson from their neighbors to the north. Virginia has also been rapidly growing and while once a Republican stronghold, the party is now collapsing and Democrats have successfully captured the Governor’s seat, the State Senate, and one U.S. Senate seat and are likely to take the other next year. Furthermore, the state will most certainly be in play for the presidential race coming up.

If the Republican Party is to continue taking North Carolina for granted much like they did Virginia, I think they will be facing another such battle come 2012.