RALEIGH – As the new Republican majorities in the North Carolina General Assembly begin to sort our their leadership roles and priorities for the upcoming legislative session, the state’s political class is still trying to take in the full import of the 2010 election cycle.

The political, business, and media culture of the capital city has been largely Democratic for decades. Although it should have been obvious to observers months ago that the GOP had a good chance of winning solid majorities in both the state house and senate, political insiders had never really accepted the evidence of their senses.

They had resisted the notion that North Carolina politics might take an unmistakable turn to the right. Now they have no choice but to adjust to it.

I think that embattled Gov. Beverly Perdue was one of the few politicos in Raleigh not to be surprised or flummoxed by the Republican victory. She’s been working with her advisors on a regulatory reform initiative, a radical reorganization plan for state government, and a 2011-13 budget that will close a multi-billion-dollar deficit without major revenue hikes.

All are longtime conservative causes. All are likely to attract significant Republican support in the legislature. And all will help reposition Perdue as a centrist for the 2012 election, should she choose that political route.

I am reminded of how nimble former Gov. Jim Hunt proved to be during his last two terms. Faced with a Republican house of representatives for four of those eight years, Hunt tacked to the right on welfare reform, proposed larger tax cuts than GOP leaders had pitched, and supported the 1996 bill that authorized North Carolina’s first charter schools.

Hunt was reelected easily in 1996. Perdue knows this history well.

In many ways, however, the political situation facing the governor and the Democratic Party in North Carolina is far more challenging than that facing Hunt in the 1990s. Republicans now have a veto-proof majority in the senate and, at least on some issues, a veto-proof coalition in the house with a handful of fiscally conservative Democrats. Republicans hold several Council of State offices and a majority on the state supreme court.

At the local level, the 2010 elections proved to be a bonanza for Republicans. While capital city politicos are no doubt aware that the GOP recaptured a majority on the Wake County Board of Commissioners, they are likely unaware that the Republicans made major gains elsewhere, in dozens of communities from the mountains to the coast.

According to analysis by the North Carolina Association of County Commissioners, Republicans appear to have picked up at least 55 commission seats as well as additional races for sheriff, clerk of court, and other offices. Going into the 2010 cycle, Democrats controlled 64 county commissions vs. the Republicans’ 36. Now, the balance is striking: 50 Democratic county boards, 49 Republican ones, and a conservative coalition in Jackson County that includes two Republicans and a new unaffiliated commissioner who will chair the board and ran on conservative issues with the backing of local Tea Party groups.

Exuberant Republicans should be reminded that the 2010 elections didn’t suddenly make them a majority party. They won the General Assembly convincingly, with nearly 60 percent of the statewide vote, but Democrats still enjoy a 7-6 majority in the congressional delegation, control most of the power in the executive branch of state government, and retain a strong set of operatives, fundraisers, and power players within the state’s establishment. And those county results signal the arrival of parity – not of some inevitable GOP ascendancy.

Furthermore, now that Republicans achieved their long-term goal of assuming power in the North Carolina legislature and many counties, they have a responsibility to deliver on the promise of open, honest, conservative governance. Closing big budget deficits without raising taxes will require some tough decisions. So will reforming North Carolina’s mediocre public-sector monopolies in education and other services.

But the Democrats obviously have the harder challenge. It begins with accepting a basic truth: Raleigh is no longer a Democratic town.

Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation and publisher of CarolinaJournal.com.