Lots of transplants from the “blue” north in Raleigh. A town next to Raleigh still in Wake county is Cary and the local joke is Cary stands for Containment Area Relocated Yankees. They come here because it is a wonderful place to live then try to make it like NJ.
It looks like the population of NC went up 200,000 from 2012 to 2014. Not sure about 2014 to 2016. Romney’s margin of victory was about 92,000.