The Republicans have a new member of Congress this morning.  Dan Bishop beat Dan McCready for the 9th Congressional District seat by two points.  

Here’s the other headline:  Donald Trump won the district by 12 points in 2016.  And given the Republican history in the district, it should have been a cakewalk. From Politico Playbook:

“But in the Trump era, it has morphed into a battleground. The wealthy suburbs of Charlotte — Mecklenburg County — turned sharply away from TRUMP and the GOP and toward Democrats. And the exurbs and rural parts of the district have become redder, mirroring the reshaping of the Republican electorate, writ large. That made this seat – North Carolina’s 9th District – a hell of a race.”

The voting was in line with what the parties have become. The GOP won the rural vote and the Democrats won suburbia. Last night followed a similar pattern to the 2018 midterms. In 2020, if the Republicans don’t have suburbia, it will be a tough election for Donald Trump to win.  From the New York Times:

“G.O.P. strategists on Tuesday night said the race was eerily reminiscent of the other, nail-bitingly close special elections in the first year of the Trump presidency, when the party barely hung onto a handful of House seats that in previous years they carried with ease. Those too-close-for-comfort victories, in districts from Kansas and Montana to Georgia and South Carolina, were ominous signs for Republicans ahead of a 2018 midterm election where they lost the House.”