NC’s brand has been seriously destroyed in the last several years, and that sort of thing is not easy to fix. The decades of hard work positioning the state as the most progressive in the South was all undone since the 2010 elections. Now, instead of people looking at NC positively, they are actually seeking out stories that reinforce the new narrative on the state: that it’s backward.
In the end, Raleigh’s personal city brand also couldn’t overcome Austin’s with its “Keep Austin Weird”, “Live Music Capital” persona. “Being a nice place to raise a family” isn’t going to carry Raleigh into the future. Yes, it still matters, but it can’t be the only thing the city is known for.
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well… not a majority of people not a majority of voters.
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Haha. Yes a rather sizable majority of voters. North Carolina rejected being the “most progressive state in the South” by overwhelmingly voting for the GOP and giving them super majority some years ago. Every time that there is a state wide vote on a social issue the conservative point of view always wins. North Carolina is more aligned with NASCAR than they are with Apple. A majority of voters approved the Voter ID law.
I think the real story is the other new office sites announced for the next few years were Seattle, San Diego, and Culver City. Totally understand them picking Austin over Raleigh, but really disappointing to miss out on even the smaller prizes that actually would have been a better fit for our city. (Similar to the Nashville portion of Amazon).
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In regards to the last several elections this is factually incorrect. The divide isn’t nearly as stark as it is reflected in the NCGA. They’ve only been able to maintain their supermajority through gerrymandering and vote suppression (and maybe electoral fraud.) It’s a much more purple state than it’s been governed as.
But I digress.
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Meh, anyway. What happens now? So much of our economic speculation was tied up in to the Big A’s, I’m kind of relieved that it’s over.
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Actually, I’m not really torn up about missing out on either Apple or Amazon. I don’t think losing either will change the current trajectory Raleigh is on and it will allow the city to build and develop at a much more thoughtful and planned pace. I know I’m probably hugely in the minority in that thinking. Now it’s time to focus on building up homegrown companies and make Raleigh a desirable landing spot for “mid-major” corporations looking to take advantage of our growing city, low cost of living and hopefully increasing services and amenities.
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If we are fair, 2010 was a huge year for backlash vote on the right. Along with malaise of the middle & left that accompanied the deep, deep recession we had been in since 2008, it was the perfect recipe to politically capture the state. The right was highly motivated to vote, and they did.
Since that vote, the Republicans have (and continue to do so) seized, shaped, gerrymandered their way to maximum power in the state at every turn, and have especially worked overtime to curtail the role of the Democratic governor who, by the way, was elected by the full state & not through the gerrymandered districts that Republicans created.
It’s completely fair to say that the government we have now was put in place by the majority of people who voted in 2010. However, and since that time, it’s not necessarily accurate to say that our continued government is representative of voters today. NC is likely one of the most politically balanced states in the union, and generally acted like that for decades. It never really lead on progressive issues, but it also didn’t lead on conservative ones either. It delicately moved forward on the tail end of the middle of the country (which made it among the most progressive in the South). I think that the Republicans knew that would continue to be the case if they didn’t do something, hence all the manipulations of future elections that were put in place, and limits to voices that oppose them.
Subsequent statewide votes since 2010 returned to their near 50/50 split, but we have been living under veto proof conservative government since then. Is that what voters in NC want? I don’t think that anyone can objectively say yes. In fact, Democratic voters in NC overcame/over performed the gerrymandering just enough last month to eliminate the veto-proof majority at the state level. What has been the Republican response?..push through new voting laws before they lose their super majority to ensure their control of future elections. …and it continues.
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Yep, I think we’re still a very desirable place to do business. And the supermajority has been broken in the NCGA, so hopefully we see more middle-of-the-road legislation coming out of there in the future, further increasing our chances of progressive companies setting up shop.
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I imagine we’ll see more gridlock as the current system punishes compromise but that’s not a wholly bad thing in and of itself. Keep North Carolina Boring might be a positive outcome for the next handful of years.
This is disappointing but Austin was tough to beat. Apple already employs 6,000 there and Texas is reportedly giving them $25 million.
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@TedF Did you actually look at the voting percentages? You do realize that NC is one of the most gerrymandered states in the nation so even if the voting is basically 50/50 (which is what it is), the GOP holds an 11-2 majority in terms of congressional seats. Does this make sense? only if you look at the gerrymandered districts that effectively cut out democratic votes.
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Gerrymandering did not just arise and happen 8 or 10 years ago. It has been ongoing for many decades with a number of cases in the 1990’s and 2000’s. Republican had to overcome the Democratic version of gerrymandering in order to win their own majority in the general assembly. What you are really arguing against is not gerrymandering so much as that you are against the GOP doing it better (or worse?) than previously. For a state is roughly 50/50 split as many people concede, there must have been a huge backlash against progressive policies in order for the GOP to win in huge majorities. But my argument is that if you take a single issue and allow North Carolina voters to vote on, then they will always vote conservatively. In 2012 North Carolina voted for an amendment that marriage must be between a man and a woman by a 61% majority. And the recent Voter ID amendment was also passed. Probably North Carolina would have voted for the HB2 if it would have come out in a statewide vote. With all the people moving into North Carolina I do believe it is only a matter of time that maybe this will change and we will get more progressive again.
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@TedF Ted, the GOP was able to gerrymander NC unlike anytime in our history, hence the reason a Federal Court used the term ‘with surgical precision’, when they overturned part of the gerrymandering, citing it was unconstitutional. The data and analytical capabilities today very exceed anything in the past so yes, the GOP can gerrymander on a much greater scale than every before. Your examples of the ‘marriage amendment’ is flawed. 61% of the voting population did NOT say they wanted this. maybe 61% of the people who actually showed up to vote in 2012 but that does not mean 61% of North Carolinians voted for that idiotic bill…most probably could care less who marries who.
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This is probably why I love living in Raleigh, we’re both failing upwards. 
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First of all, I understand that “to the victors go the spoils”, and I even understand how winning the power and control leads to a tilt toward the victors’ advantage. I also understand that this has gone on for decades. However, as UncleJesse says, the depth to which the Republican government has taken it in NC has moved toward eradicating dissenting voices, including purposely suppressing votes. This is a giant step in the wrong direction for the health of a democracy. The shenanigans around NC9 is abhorrent if proven to be true. That’s the perfect example of what lengths the party has proven that they’ll go to keep winning. It’s criminal.
At the Federal level, NC has 13 US House seats. I can totally get behind those seats being split 7-6 for the Republicans since they won the important redistricting election cycle. Heck, I can even accept an 8-5 split in the vote when the actual vote numbers represent nearly a 50:50 vote split between R & D. However, the 10-3 split in seats since 2010 is simply criminal and doesn’t represent the voices of all North Carolinians. To extrapolate what a 10:3 split would mean if actually mapped to the total votes, it would suggest that one party represents nearly 77% of the voters, or R+54. Of course, they do not.
As for HB2, the voters did get a chance to vote on it when they were given the choice between McCrory & Cooper in 2016. We all know how NC voted. Yes, it was close; it was representative of NC’s political reality. Cooper won in a year when Trump won the state.
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While I agree with this statement, it would have changed our trajectory IF we had gotten them… C’est la via
Totally agree here!
Austin gets Apple.
Raleigh gets Advance Auto Parts.
Think about that. No disrespect to AAP, but it’s not going to elicit excitement in the same way that Apple does.
To grow is to look toward the future and prepare for it.
To prepare for the future is to map where the future is heading socially, culturally, economically, etc., and put policy and laws in place that allow us to reach it.
To purposely prevent us from moving toward that future economically hurts us.
Even the perception of preventing the movement toward the future is extremely damaging to our community’s and state’s future.
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The Democrats gerrymandered 2 districts to ensure majority african american representation. The GOP has gerrymandered all 13 to ensure 10 republicans get elected. One side was looking to establish a minimum, the other a maximum. I think that is not apples to apples in any sense.
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Probably time to close this topic.
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