NC Press Asociation's front pages from Wednesday.
Due to narrow margin - about 12,000 in Obama's favor - the state has to count all the provisional ballots (which usually favor Dems) and all the mail-in ballots (mostly from the military personnel abroad - who knows who that favors any more!). There is little chance, though, officials and statisticians say, that the additional counting will reverse the order, but the official business has to be done in an orderly way. Unofficially, North Carolina went Blue this year. This will become official in a couple of days, I guess. How? Large influx of people from NY, OH, CA, MI and elswehere, coming to NC to work in technology and biotech industries. Large urban centers (Charlotte, Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, Cary, Greensboro, Winston-Salem, Asheville, etc.) getting more and more democratic, but also good ground game in heavily Republican counties in the mountains that each have a small University campus brought many of the students to vote and turned those counties blue as well.
The state went for Obama. The state legislature remains Democratic. The Dem governor Mike Easley was replaced by the Dem governor Beverly Purdue. Congressman Hayes was kicked out by Larry Kissel. Elizabeth Dole was trounced by the new Senator Kay Hagan. It feels good to be a North Carolinian today.
There were celebrations around here - in Durham, Chapel Hill and Carrboro on Tuesday night. And there were fireworks coming from the direction of the UNC campus and/or Carolina stadium after the 11pm announcement.
Update: It is official now - AP reports that Obama won North Carolina! w00t!!!!