It’s the end of the line for Republican Pat McCrory, whose tenure as North Carolina governor was a relatively short one. The GOP benefited bigly on Election Day overall, including picking up several governorships. Unfortunately, North Carolina won’t remain on the list. This week McCrory conceded to Democrat Roy Cooper after a recount failed to change the outcome.

By North Carolina standards, McCrory’s loss is a rare feat. According to Fox News, “McCrory’s defeat marks the first time a sitting North Carolina governor has lost a re-election bid since the state constitution was amended in 1977 to allow governors to seek a second term.”

The reason isn’t a mystery. The Left launched a full-fledged smear campaign after McCrory dared to sign a bill prohibiting transgender individuals from entering restrooms not aligned with their biological sex. Radical? Not exactly. Nevertheless, leftists successfully turned the debate into one alleging “discrimination.”

According to The Washington Post, “Exit polls show that two-thirds of voters opposed the law. Democratic Attorney General Roy Cooper won 64 percent of that group. McCrory won three-quarters of the 30 percent who favored the legislation.”

But there’s more than meets the leftist eye. Laughably, the Post goes on to argue, “The McCrory experience could serve as a cautionary tale for other GOP incumbents weighing similar bills, including those focused on religious liberty, in the coming years.” The writers are either completely oblivious to or continue to ignore what’s happening across the rest of the nation, where Republicans — whether it be in Congress or at the state level — have seen tremendous gains. And much of that is because of the Democrat assault on religious liberty.

McCrory lost, yes, but the margin — 10,000 votes — is hardly enough to consider it an overwhelming rejection. In fact, if anything the data proves again how easy it is for metropolitan areas to sway the election. Consider this excerpt from the Post: “McCrory was mayor of Charlotte for 14 years before getting elected. Perceived as a pro-business centrist, he won Mecklenburg County, the most populous in the state and home to the city, by 3,000 votes in 2012 (about 1 percent). This year he lost the county by 137,000 votes, or 29 points, the same percentage that Trump lost it by.”

Meanwhile, nowhere in the Post coverage do the writers mention that “Republicans retain super majorities in both legislative chambers,” as reported by Fox News. In the end, this is nowhere near the victory the Left is making it out to be.