RALEIGH, N.C. — Political chaos has become as much a fixture of life here as the basketball rivalry between Duke and the University of North Carolina: four years of battles, boycotts, protests and standoffs over voting, gerrymandering, anti-discrimination ordinances, bathroom access and the ability of Republicans to strip power from the governor’s office as soon as a Democrat wins it.

The warfare has turned North Carolina, once the South’s beacon of moderation, into perhaps the most polarized state in the country. Politics, more often than not here, has become blood sport, a toxic twist on the historical tensions in a state that, much like the nation, is split down the middle even as Republicans enjoy almost all of the political power. As such, North Carolina may serve as a kind of window into the American future.

“We’ve become Exhibit A of our country’s political trends,” said Representative David E. Price, a veteran Democrat and a political scientist by training.

This is a place where the thriving, liberal population centers, like the Research Triangle of Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill, seem to move in orbits entirely apart from the struggling, staunchly conservative countryside.