One might shrug off the sweeping voting restrictions approved last week in North Carolina as typical of a Southern state under Republican control. But look again: Unlike many of its neighbors, the Tar Heel State had been well down the path of progressivism for several years before the GOP shut it down during this year's legislative session. Indeed, North Carolina had broken away from its regional neighbors by expanding access to the polls, which helped increase minority-voter turnout. A strong and steady flow of newcomers to the state brought more open-minded political views to bear on local elections. 

On Election Day, Arizona remained a red state -- electing Sheriff Joe Arpaio to a sixth term in office, Republican Jeff Flake to the U.S. Senate, and voting for Mitt Romney for president -- while its neighbors, Nevada, New Mexico, and Colorado, went blue for President Obama. According to political pundits, the reason those states voted Democrat this year was because of their fast-growing Latino populations. If having a large Latino population was all a state needed to turn blue, then Arizona, which is almost one-third Latino, should have been blue, too. But it wasn’t.