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Tension between McCrory and council Democrats flared in December over committee appointments. Some Democratic legislators panned McCrory's caravan to Raleigh last year as grandstanding. Those same lawmakers tend to view Pittenger as a partisan ideologue.

Personally, the two are friendly though not particularly close. They travel in different social circles and belong to different country clubs. Pittenger is wonkish about policy, McCrory less so.

For a time, they shared a shadow rivalry over the prospect of replacing fellow Charlotte Republican Sue Myrick in Congress.

East vs. west no more

In the past 200 years, North Carolina has had one governor from Charlotte: Democrat Cameron Morrison, elected in 1920. No Charlottean has ever served as lieutenant governor.

That both candidates hail from the Queen City is especially unusual in a state that once preferred its leaders to reflect its geographical balance.

"The fact that McCrory and Pittenger won tells us something about the changing map of North Carolina," says Hood. "It's more of an urban and suburban story and less of an east-versus-west story."

McCrory won one county east of Raleigh and pulled most of his votes from the Piedmont. Ferrel Guillory, a political analyst from UNC-Chapel Hill, says he doubts that either geography or the "Great State of Mecklenburg" label will hurt in the fall.

"North Carolina is looking like Charlotte more and more every day," he says. Pittenger and McCrory "will be judged by their views and their character and all the others issues voters use to judge candidates."

Whatever their differences, both candidates say they'll work together.

"Yes, we are distinctive," says Pittenger. "We have differences. [But] I cheer him on, and he cheers me on."

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