LEXINGTON, North Carolina — In his workplace in Lexington Metropolis Corridor, Mayor Jason Hayes has a framed {photograph} of his father, standing contained in the close by Burlington Home Furnishings-Philpot plant, the place he labored till it was closed down in 1985.
His father then labored in a second manufacturing facility, Thomasville Furnishings, nevertheless it, too, was shuttered in 2006, simply 5 months earlier than he deliberate to retire.
“NAFTA,” his son explains, “was the actual impetus for all of that.”
The collapse of the native textile and furnishings industries a quarter-century in the past gutted this metropolis of 20,000 and surrounding Davidson County, leaving deserted factories and a hollowed-out downtown.
However as we speak the realm has rotated. An Austrian firm constructed a $700 million particle board manufacturing facility in 2018. A laminate producer expanded in 2021. And extra is coming: Nucor Metal is constructing a $350 million plant. Siemens is constructing a manufacturing facility to make passenger rail automobiles. In neighboring Randolph County, Toyota is ending an $8 billion battery plant.
It’s a story concerning the rebirth in native manufacturing on this area, nevertheless it’s additionally the story of the Republican Celebration’s electoral resilience in North Carolina. Rural and exurban locations like Davidson County will not be rising as quick as Charlotte’s Mecklenburg County and Raleigh’s Wake County, the 2 metropolitan engines of the state’s speedy development, however they’re serving as an essential financial and political counterbalance.
In Davidson’s case, the financial revitalization round manufacturing is reinforcing native conservative tendencies, somewhat than diluting them with an inflow of Democratic-leaning newcomers. In order Mecklenburg and Wake proceed to bolster the state’s Democratic efficiency, Davidson and counties prefer it have mixed to offset these positive aspects, forming a Republican bulwark that’s saved the state narrowly in Donald Trump’s camp.
Statewide, Trump received by roughly 20 factors in each suburban and rural areas, in keeping with 2020 exit polls, sufficient to confound expectations that the state’s development and growing diversification would break the Republican Celebration’s maintain on North Carolina.
“The individuals coming right here work with their fingers,” mentioned Jimmy Daley, a vice chairman for a propane firm who has lived in Davidson County his entire life, apart from 4 years within the army. “It’s not as a lot the IT stuff that you just see coming into the Charlotte space, the Raleigh space. It’s old fashioned Davidson County. It’s nonetheless that manufacturing base — simply with greater salaries.”
After Barack Obama narrowly received North Carolina in 2008, many assumed the state would transfer into the Democratic column. Simply as college-educated progressives had colonized Northern Virginia, turning that state blue, Democrats believed the identical factor would occur right here.
However the Obama sequel by no means arrived. Republicans have received the final three presidential elections, albeit by shut margins. They’ve additionally received the 5 U.S. Senate races since Obama’s victory.
The GOP’s recipe has been to squeeze extra votes from the state’s most rural counties, whereas additionally rolling up strong margins in suburban and exurban counties, like Cabarrus and Union counties exterior of Charlotte, and Johnston County exterior of Raleigh.
What’s additionally saved the GOP barely forward is a unique bucket of votes: A handful of counties — some fast-growing, others much less so — that don’t match the basic definition of suburban. A few of these are fueled by retirees, like coastal Brunswick County close to Wilmington.
However most are what North Carolina politicos name “Countrypolitan” counties — locations on the perimeter of city areas, far sufficient out in order that few Democrats are shifting there.
Davidson County is the largest Countrypolitan county — and for Republicans, crucial. No different North Carolina county gave Trump a bigger net-margin of uncooked votes in 2020.
Its development price this decade has been roughly the state common. However its voter rolls are rising at a quicker clip than North Carolina general, together with many of the giant city blue counties. That could be as a result of Trump has energized white voters and made them wish to register. It is also as a result of lots of the new individuals coming to North Carolina’s cities are foreign-born, and maybe not registering to vote.
Davidson, which is house to 175,000 individuals, hasn’t voted for a Democrat for president since 1944. Over the past dozen or so years, it’s change into much more conservative, partially as a result of its demographics are in Trump’s candy spot. Almost 80 % of the county is white, non-Hispanic. Solely 23 % have school levels, in contrast with the state common of 37 %.
Within the 2012 election, Mitt Romney bought just below 70 % of the county vote, successful Davidson by practically 29,000 votes. However Trump captured 73 % of the vote in 2020 and received by 42,000.
Matt Mercer with the North Carolina Republican Celebration mentioned political prognosticators specializing in the state’s blue cities maintain getting the state improper. “The demography-is-destiny individuals have been at it for a very long time, and it’s confirmed to not be true.”
Lexington payments itself as the “The Barbecue Capital of the World,” so when the underside fell out for the native textile and furnishings industries, the distressed metropolis launched into a public artwork undertaking to rejoice its one remaining custom, a fall pork BBQ pageant. Lexington inspired inserting ceramic embellished pigs throughout the town — a pig dressed as a ballerina (Swine Lake) or a pig embellished as puzzle items (a pig noticed) — which nonetheless stand as we speak. It was, in a way, an try to put lipstick on a pig.
Republicans have kind of run state authorities in North Carolina since 2011, they usually credit score their low-tax insurance policies with attracting the businesses which have come to Davidson County. However the greatest elements might have had nothing to do with politics: Interstate 85 — an financial lifeline within the southeastern U.S. — bisects the county, there’s loads of cheap land and there was a ready-made workforce primed to make issues.
The southern a part of Davidson could be very rural, with small communities like Churchland simply off the Yadkin River. There’s a giant reservoir — Excessive Rock Lake — that’s house to retirees. These are a number of the most conservative elements of North Carolina, with Trump’s vote share practically reaching 90 %.
The northern a part of the county is the place the expansion is. It’s close to the county’s two cities, Lexington and Thomasville, and likewise near the inhabitants hubs of Winston-Salem and Greensboro.
Davidson’s new subdivisions aren’t the sort you see in locations like Union County exterior of Charlotte. There are few 4,000 square-foot properties with turrets.
Extra typical: 2,500 sq. ft, front-facing storage, some vinyl siding.
“Now we have a variety of new properties being constructed,” mentioned Hayes, the Lexington mayor. “However they’re in that $300,000 to $400,000 vary. Will we ever be house to the supervisor class who’re working these factories? I don’t know.”
By “supervisor class,” Hayes is making a delicate distinction between the sorts of working class voters who dwell in Davidson County and the extra white collar voters within the Charlotte and Raleigh metro areas.
Over lunch at Lexington Barbecue — naturally, positioned on Smokehouse Lane — Christopher Jessup, a highschool administrator who’s the chair of the Davidson County Republican Celebration, explains the county’s position as nearly defensive in nature.
“Any vote right here cancels a vote in Mecklenburg, or Wake or [Greensboro’s] Guilford,” mentioned Jessup.
He’s not alone in pondering that method. North Carolina Republicans typically discuss concerning the state’s suburban and exurban counties as firewalls towards the cities. Mark Harris, a GOP candidate who’s closely favored to win a seat in Congress in November, has referred to Union County, exterior of Mecklenburg County, as “the crimson wall,” suggesting it’s defending a lot of the state from Charlotte’s liberalism.
Many citizens right here see issues the identical method.
“On the warehouse the place I work, everyone is conservative,” mentioned Stephen Newsome, who lives on the outskirts of Lexington, close to a vineyard owned by NASCAR workforce proprietor Richard Childress. (Is there something extra North Carolina than a vineyard owned by a inventory automobile racing magnate?) The soon-to-be 40-year-old says he’s troubled by the Democratic Celebration’s social liberalism.
“It’s the indoctrination of kids,” Newsome mentioned, “If it’s being introduced into our college — that’s an issue. That’s my drawback. And that’s what any conservative, what anyone with widespread sense would say: I don’t care what you do along with your way of life. However let’s don’t speak about homosexuality, let’s don’t speak about heterosexuality. Let’s not speak about sexuality.”
Recognizing the social conservatism of many of those voters, the Trump marketing campaign has bombarded the state throughout school and NFL video games with commercials that spotlight Kamala Harris’ place in 2019 of supporting taxpayer-funded surgical procedures for inmates to transition to a unique gender.
Since 2020, Davidson County has added about 8,000 new voters — a 7 % improve. Republicans have added about 4,000 of them. Unaffiliated voters have grown by 6,000. Democrats, in the meantime, have misplaced 2,400. The truth is, Democratic registration has been in free fall, dropping from 30 % of the county’s voters in 2012 to simply 18 % this fall.
Jeanne Doom is attempting to repair that. A retiree who lives in Thomasville, the county’s largest metropolis, she grew to become chair of the Davidson Democratic Celebration in 2023.
“I simply need individuals to say, ‘I’m a Democrat. I don’t have horns. It’s OK for me to place my indicators up. It’s OK,’” she mentioned.
She’s had a troublesome time handing out slate playing cards on the polls.
“I’ve gotten good at not being spit on,” she mentioned casually, making a guttural sound of somebody filling their mouth with saliva. “After which you need to go proper or left after which transfer — quick.”
Hayes, Lexington’s mayor, doesn’t see the GOP’s grip on the county slipping anytime quickly. He has a novel vantage level — although his workplace is non-partisan, he’s a registered Democrat. He’s capable of win elections, partially, as a result of many of the county’s Democrats are packed in his small metropolis.
Whereas he’s thrilled on the native financial progress (there was 100 constructing permits a yr, now there are 1,400) he acknowledges the trendlines recommend he has no political future past the town limits.
“If we are going to get extra manufacturing alternatives, even when it’s greater tech manufacturing, that doesn’t signify a big Democratic base,” he mentioned. “That’s sort of the dilemma we face from a pure political standpoint.”
