Historically, North Carolina has been politically divided between the eastern and western parts of the state. Before the Civil War, the eastern half of North Carolina supported the Democratic Party, primarily because the region contained most of the state's slaveowners and large cash crops. The western half of the state tended to support the Whig party, which was generally seen as being more moderate on the issue of slavery and which was more supportive of business interests. Following the Civil War, the Republicans, backed by the victorious U.S. Army, controlled the state government. In the 1870s, the federal troops left, and the Democratic Party quickly gained control of the state government.
In 1894, the Republican and Populist parties formed an alliance, generally called the fusion, which gained control of the state legislature and governorship. However, in 1898 the state Democratic party, in a blatantly racist campaign, regained control of the state government. Using the slogan "White Supremacy", and backed by influential newspapers such as the Raleigh News and Observer under publisher Josephus Daniels, the Democrats ousted the Populist-Republican majority. With some notable exceptions, North Carolina then became a part of the "Solid Democratic South." Some areas of the western Piedmont and mountains continued to vote Republican, continuing a tradition that dated from their opposition to secession before the Civil War. In 1952, aided by the presidential candidacy of popular war hero Dwight Eisenhower, the Republicans were successful in electing a U.S. Congressman, Charles R. Jonas, whose father, Charles A. Jonas, had served one term in Congress (1929-1931) after Herbert Hoover carried the state in 1928. Republicans slowly made gains in the 1960s, and in 1972, aided by the landslide re-election of Richard Nixon, the Republicans elected their first governor and U.S. Senator of the twentieth century. The Senator, Jesse Helms, played a major role in reviving the Republicans and turning North Carolina into a two-party state. Under his banner many conservative Democrats in the middle and eastern parts of North Carolina left the Democrats and began to vote increasingly Republican. In part this was due to these Democrats' dissatisfaction with the national party's stance on the issues of civil rights and racial integration, and later to the national Democratic Party's leftward tilt on social issues such as prayer in school, gun rights, abortion rights, and gay rights. From 1968–2004 (with the sole exception of Jimmy Carter's election in 1976), North Carolina has voted Republican in every presidential election. At a state level, however, the state is roughly evenly balanced between the parties, and state and local elections are now highly competitive. The Republicans hold both U.S. Senate seats, but the Democrats retain the governorship, majorities in both houses of the state legislature, and a majority of U.S. House seats as of January 2007. Modern North Carolina politics center less around the old east-west geographical split, and more on a growing urban-suburban-rural divide. Many of the state's rural and small-town areas are now heavily Republican, while growing urban centers such as Charlotte, Raleigh, and Greensboro are increasingly Democratic. The suburban areas around the cities usually hold the balance of power, and vote both ways.