Asheville is pretty trendy and left leaning. Like most places the closer your are to the bigger cities the more left wing the politics. Outside of the major metro areas NC is pretty conservative. Good people. They have a new Dem governor but still have a Republican legislature. The Dems in NC are about as corrupt as they come in state government.
Agree with both your observations (blue devil you left out NC State... heh hehe- an insurance agent once told me a car insuring was “the wrong color”— do need to choose sides in round ball. Cause really nobody plays real football here, not like in AL or FL or GA or SC..LOL).
The dem machine is aligned with big tobacco which is still run by Reynolds/Winston Salem. NC largest tobacco producer in the US (when they aren’t buying baccy from Zimbabwe plantations they gave over to mugabe— truth). Dem machine— impenetrable corrupt cronycrats (biggest employer is the STATE or the Fedgov/ EPA, military). Machine was broken by the homo-lobby for bathroom open access— and broken by the family religious white and black middle class church pastors, and.. the Bible, resulting in the first Republican controlled legislature since 1896. And delivered for Trump.