In North Carolina, unimpeded GOP drives state hard to the right

◼ “The poll results show a clear desire for bold tax relief and reform that gets North Carolina back in the game for jobs and business,” said Dallas Woodhouse, state director of Americans for Prosperity in North Carolina. - Michael A. Fletcher/Washington Post

...The state’s hard turn to the right comes less than five years after people took to the streets here to celebrate the 2008 victory of Barack Obama, the first Democratic presidential candidate to capture the state since Jimmy Carter in 1976. The win prompted Obama’s supporters to crow about the growing influence of progressive and minority voters not only in North Carolina but across the South....

But that euphoria is now a distant memory. Since the recession hit, North Carolina has been saddled with one of the nation’s highest unemployment rates. The bad times helped prepare the way for a carefully executed strategy, with big financial support from a major conservative activist, that helped the GOP win control of both chambers of the state General Assembly in 2010.

Those victories were capped last year when Republican Pat McCrory was elected governor, giving the party control of all levers of state government for the first time since 1870....