I don’t know if you are correct with your observations, but it’s certainly is refreshing to hear someone argue the issue from the upbeat side you have chosen.
Well, thanks. I don't want to come across as blindly optimistic, either with regard to the nation as a whole or with regard to my state, but I just don't accept the meme that "the blue state Yankees are moving to the South, and turning our states blue, too." At least in North Carolina, voting statistics do not support that theory.
This is not to say that everything is rosy for Republicans in NC. At least since 1988, the Republican Presidential candidate has run stronger in NC than in the nation as a whole -- by 9% in 1988, 6% in 1992, 14% in 1996, 13% in 2000, 10% in 2004, 7% in 2008, and 6% in 2012. Some attribute the recent downward drift to, as Aunt Pittypat would have said, "Yankees in North Carolina!" I do not agree. The reason for the falloff is, in predominate part, the fact that President Obama is black; as such, he elicited a huge surge in black turnout.
The state's two largest counties, Mecklenburg and Wake, are indeed trending in the Democratic direction. Charlotte is not yet Detroit South, nor even close to it, but is becoming a blue city surrounded by red suburbs, just like dozens of metro areas nationwide. The suburban/exurban counties, in addition to the resort-heavy counties along the coast, in the Sandhills, and in the mountains, are growing rapidly, and trending strongly in the Republican direction -- all, to continue the theme, areas of "Yankee infiltration."