I'm hoping my state will go blue this coming election. The court ordered new districting maps have dramatically changed the balance. In 2016, the maps were wildly disproportionate with a 10/3 red/blue split. The map was mostly red with three little pathetic patches of blue. The blue districts were incredibly convoluted in the way the laid out; one district was so tortuously laid out it was labeled "the snake." The legislature tried to redistrict with an 11/2 split before 2018, but the courts said the maps were gerrymandered on racial biases with "surgical precision." Changes were ordered and put in place in time for 2018; but we still had that 10/3 split.

We picked up a new district with the Census, and the GOP-led legislature tried to put a 12/2 split into place. The NC-SCOTUS struck down the maps, so they tried a 10/4 split. The court ordered new maps. Those still came out 8/6, even though there have always been more democrat-leaning voters registered in the state. Still, that's a huge change and it's resulted in a map with a beautiful blue swath, shaped almost like a tornado, through the middle 2/5ths of the state, and a patch at its tail to the southeast where Charlotte sits.