RALEIGH, North Carolina – The heat index on this August afternoon is 103 degrees, yet more than 50 protesters are gathered around a pony keg-sized jug of green earplugs in front of the North Carolina governor's mansion.

After a few minutes, the air fills with an ear-splitting racket – a cacophony created by clanging trash can lids, off-tune tubas and industrial air horns, all aimed at making life as uncomfortable for Republican Gov. Pat McCrory as the protesters believe he has made it for residents of North Carolina.

"The rest of the country thinks that everyone in North Carolina is an idiot, or a racist or a bigot," says Robin Madison, 51, who's brought along her own earplugs and air horn. "My mother is 78 years old; she lives in Maryland, but she grew up in Nash County, North Carolina. She won't tell people that she meets she's from North Carolina because she's embarrassed."

The afternoon's air horn orchestra, and the 17 similar protests that came before it, are a reaction to the conservative turn the state's politics have taken in recent years. It's a blue-to-red bleed most typified in the public eye by HB2, North Carolina's now infamous "bathroom bill."

But that divisive measure was just the latest aftershock of the 2010 elections, when Republicans won majorities in both houses of the General Assembly for the first time since Reconstruction in the late 1800s.

"North Carolina was controlled for almost a hundred years by Democrats and many, many, times during that time, Republicans were stepped on," says Andrew Payne, a protester wearing aviator sunglasses and a red, white and blue cowboy hat. "When they finally got control, it was almost like it was payback time."

After the 2010 wave and the election of McCrory in 2012, the state pushed through a wishlist of conservative policy goals. It refused to expand Medicaid under President Barack Obama's health care law, the Affordable Care Act; cut off federally funded benefits for more than 70,000 long-term unemployed people; trimmed spending on higher education and cut corporate and income taxes, amassing a budget surplus in the process.

On social and environmental issues, the state has been no less conservative. McCrory has signed abortion restrictions, approved a voter ID law recently deemed discriminatory by a federal appeals court and sanctioned a removal of the state's fracking ban. And that's not to mention the well-publicized battle over transgender rights.

Despite that track record, North Carolina has over 600,000 more registered Democrats than Republicans – owing in part to the last-century legacy of conservative Democrats running the state, and contributing to a boiling unease among many residents with their legislature's rightward tilt.

"There has been a blowback against Republicans because there's a sense that Republicans in the [governor's office] and legislature have taken the state too far to the right," says Andy Taylor, a political science professor at North Carolina State University.

Meanwhile, North Carolina in recent years has become more competitive for national Democrats. After decades of residents voting for Republican presidential hopefuls, Obama narrowly won the state in 2008 and lost to GOP competitor Mitt Romney by just over 2 points in 2012.

A Democrat could take the state again this year, if Donald Trump doesn't pick up steam.

"Compared to what you would expect from a Republican presidential candidate here, at least in polling, he's not doing particularly well," Taylor says.

The race currently looks to be within the margin of error, and Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton are treating North Carolina like a battleground. Both candidates have visited often, and the state saw more campaign ads on television during the second week of August than all but three others, according to Kantar Media/CMAG data.

The other statewide races in 2016 are also competitive. Facing Democratic efforts to tie him to Trump and a relatively low profile for a Senate incumbent, Sen. Richard Burr is neck and neck with Deborah Ross, a former state legislator who led the American Civil Liberties Union's North Carolina chapter. The story is similar in McCrory's race against Democratic state Attorney General Roy Cooper, who holds a slim lead in the latest Public Policy Polling survey and has outraised the incumbent governor, who's been electorally burdened by the passage of HB2.

But further down the ballot, where the laws are made, the Republicans are in no danger of losing control.

"North Carolina statewide is a competitive battleground state for governor, for president and for U.S. Senate. The legislature is a completely different story, and that's largely because of redistricting," says Michael Bitzer, a political science professor at Catawba College in Salisbury, North Carolina.

Indeed, by taking the General Assembly in a Census year, the Republicans gained the power to redraw the state's electoral lines – a chance that only comes once a decade and often results in a protracted, multilevel court battle. In fact, federal judges recently ruled that GOP-drawn lines for U.S. House districts in North Carolina and for state House and Senate districts were racially gerrymandered and must be revamped.

But for Democrats, a bevy of electoral damage already has been done. In 2012 races – the first elections using the new maps – roughly 51 percent of North Carolinians voted for Democratic congressional candidates, but Republicans gained three U.S. House seats. In state legislative races, Republicans garnered only slightly over half of the total votes cast in both House and Senate contests, but secured about two-thirds of the seats in each chamber, according to Bitzer's analysis.

By 2014, none of the state's 13 congressional races were competitive, while less than 15 percent of its legislative races were, Bitzer says.

"The Republicans bought themselves an insurance policy based on redistricting that will probably last at least through 2020 for majority control," he says.

Even winning back the governor's mansion won't help Democrats on the redistricting front. In the 1990s, when lawmakers finally granted the office of the governor veto power, they included an exception: redistricting plans would not be subject to it.

"The thinking behind that law was from time to time, Republicans would win the governorship but Democrats would hold the legislature," says David Wasserman, a political analyst for The Cook Political Report. "In 2012 it backfired, because Democrats still held the governorship but Republicans had won the legislature in 2010. So Republicans got to draw that map however they wanted."

By the time the General Assembly lines are revamped in the next legislative session per court order, contests will have taken place in 2012, 2014 and 2016 using boundaries ruled unconstitutional. And even when they're redrawn, they aren't likely be any kinder to Democrats: State Rep. David Lewis, a Republican who leads the legislature's redistricting efforts, has made no secret of his motivations.

"I think electing Republicans is better than electing Democrats," Lewis said of this year's redrawn U.S. House lines. "So I drew this map in a way to help foster what I think is better for the country."

And with district lines drawn for the purpose of electing Republicans, the state is likely to continue to produce conservative laws, Bitzer says.

"When the core election becomes the primary election rather than the general election, you tend to start to see the party and the candidates move more to the extremes to simply avoid primary challenges," he says.

A continued rightward shift likely will mean more loud protests outside the governor's mansion and the state legislature, where rallies dubbed "Moral Mondays" have drawn thousands of protesters during recent legislative sessions.

Yet to the conservatives who helped craft the Republican takeover, the transition is merely a reflection of the decline of conservative state Democrats.

"Voters in North Carolina who had always supported [former Republican Sen. Jesse] Helms and voted Republican at the national level suddenly realized their local Democrats were no different from national Democrats," says Francis De Luca, president of the Civitas Institute, a conservative think tank based in Raleigh.

In 2016 and beyond, North Carolina Republicans' financial and structural advantages aren't likely to dissipate. The state is growing in population, but most new arrivals are settling in existing Democratic strongholds like Charlotte and Raleigh, leaving the state legislature's rural conservative base untouched.

"Democrats would have to embark on a resettlement program to overcome that geographic disadvantage," Wasserman says. The geographic hurdles, plus Republican control over redistricting, means the discord between the state's government and much of its population likely will continue.

"A perfect storm has helped Republicans win an awful lot of power without an awful lot of movement in public opinion," he says. "It essentially allows Republicans to rule with a tyranny of the minority. They can win fewer votes and still hold power."

That sentiment is shared by many at the rally outside the governor's mansion. After about 10 minutes of noise, the protesters unplug their ears and begin to head home. There's still no sign of McCrory, who was rumored to be on his back porch.

"I feel like North Carolina is becoming increasingly more progressive," Hayes says as the sidewalk empties. "I just think that the elected officials are not maybe keeping up with the progression of the people. And it's time for some new officials."