A State Where Everything Is Contested: Why This Blog Is About North Carolina

Ask a North Carolinian a simple question, like where to get the best barbecue, and you won’t get an answer. You’ll get a position. The same is true of colleges and universities, of the mountains versus the coast, and of just about every election. This blog is about that: the culture, the sports, and the politics of a state where people care deeply about where they stand.

In North Carolina, culture, politics, and sports aren’t separate topics. They come from the same place: strong local loyalties, a state that’s hard to sum up in one sentence, and people who care a lot about where they’re from.

Culture

My barbecue positions are settled. When I want the real thing, I go to Skylight Inn or Sam Jones BBQ: Eastern-style, whole hog, chopped and seasoned with vinegar and pepper, the way I believe it was meant to be. I know folks in the Piedmont feel differently, and that’s the point. A dish so simple has divided the state for generations, and no one is budging. We are a place of small towns and fast-growing cities, of mountain hollers and coastal marshes, and everyone is sure their own corner is the best. That pride runs through everything I plan to write here.

Sports

You can learn a lot about a North Carolinian by asking what color they wear on Saturdays. Duke, UNC, NC State, and Wake Forest make up Tobacco Road, one of the most intense concentrations of rivalries anywhere. But the state’s sports identity is bigger than four universities. App State, NCCU, ECU, Campbell, and NC A&T all have devoted followings. On the professional side, the Hurricanes just won their second Stanley Cup in 2026, Panthers and Hornets fans still pack Bank of America Stadium and the Spectrum Center each home game, and Charlotte FC and the NC Courage give the state top-flight men’s and women’s soccer. And a grassroots group, MLB Raleigh, is making the case for bringing Major League Baseball to the Triangle. Rivalries divide us on Saturday, but on pro-game days, we find a common color.

I’m a third-generation ECU alumnus, which means I know what it’s like to love a team the rest of the state sometimes overlooks. I’ll never forget September 20, 2014, when ECU beat UNC 70-41 in front of a raucous crowd at Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium. Afterward, I celebrated in the tailgating lot with my family. Three generations, one Pirate victory, a bottle of (cheap) champagne shared among shouts of “Purple!” and “Gold!,” and a memory I’ll cherish for a lifetime. That’s what sports mean in the Old North State. They aren’t entertainment so much as inheritance.

Politics

North Carolina politics is famously hard to pin down. The state has backed a Democrat for president only once since 1980, when Barack Obama carried it in 2008 by about 14,000 votes. Yet it has a long tradition of electing Democratic governors. Both patterns showed up in 2020, when voters gave North Carolina’s electoral votes to Republican Donald Trump and reelected Democrat Roy Cooper on the same ballot. That kind of split decision is what makes North Carolina so interesting to follow, and it’s the sort of puzzle I want to dig into here. I’m publishing this on Election Day, which feels like the right moment to start.

My political writing is opinionated, and I write from the left. I care most about the issues that touch all North Carolinians: access to affordable healthcare, public education, and the economy. I’ll always show my work, linking to primary sources, giving you the numbers, and telling you where the facts end and my judgment begins. I’ll listen to a well-made argument built on solid evidence, even one I disagree with, but I won’t lend credibility to arguments that aren’t. You don’t have to agree with me to find the data worth a look.

What You Can Expect

Expect posts on all three subjects, sometimes in the same piece. I’ll write about the games, the arguments, the elections, and the food, and I’ll try to show why they belong together.

What ties it all together is a simple instinct: loyalty to place. The same energy that fills a stadium or arena on Saturday shows up in how we talk about the people we send to Raleigh. Understanding one helps you understand the others.

So tell me: what’s the one North Carolina argument you’ll never back down from? Mine involves a whole hog, and I’m not changing my mind.