Agreed. NC will be in the GOP column this time out.
“VA though I’m a little worried about.”
Swap VA for WI and NH and you end up with +1 EV (14 to 13). Walker/Ryan should move things in the right direction in WI. And Mittens wins NH.
The problem is that we were already counting on NH’s 4 EVs to get to 270 EVs. The 22 McCain states + the Omaha CD + IN + NC + OH + FL + VA = 266 EVs. If Romney can’t carry VA, he’d be at 267 (3 short) even if he won both WI and NH.
If Romney picks a conservative runningmate, I won’t be much concerned about VA; Romney should outperform Republicans in NoVA, and the conservative runningmate (plus campaigning by McDonnell) should get us the sort of turnout we need in the rest of the state. Ditto with NC and FL. My biggest concern is OH, which is why I think that Romney should pick Rob Portman (who is also a conservative, a Methodist, and has appeal to blue-collar voters) as his runningmate.