Jut don't leave Raleigh or Durham city limits... then you will find why it is such a red state.

Winston-Salem, Greensboro, and Charlotte also tend to be "blue". But you don't have to go to far outside the cities to find the "red" country.

Then it changed a whole lot since the early 2000s. Same with W-S. Charlotte is a banking capital, and it is green. Which means it is whatever color it has to be to get more of your money.

....these will have detrimental economic effects on that area. A lot of people don't want to live where voting is seen as a privilege and not a right, where women & girls just become reproductive slaves once they reach childbearing age, and where LGBTQ people are treated like pariahs.

And all of that affected the ranking in the Life, Health, and Inclusion metric according to the article.

Democrats are not turning out to vote. We saw it in the 2022 mid terms. There has been a turnover in the party leadership at the state level. The numbers are here. Turnout is critical.