Analysis of Voters Challenged by Justice Griffin Part II

 by Christopher Cooper

On January 13, 2025 I wrote an analysis of the partisan and demographic patterns of the approximately 60,000 North Carolinians whose ballots are being challenged by Justice Griffin because of" incomplete voter registration." That analysis can be found here.

Since then, Justice Griffin has filed a brief with the North Carolina State Supreme Court where he outlines his case in more detail, along with his preferred remedy. In that brief, he explains that, in addition to the 60,723 voters with "incomplete voter registration," that I analyzed before, he is focusing his challenge on two additional groups of voters: (1) 267 "never residents" and (2) 5,509 "overseas voters without photo ID." 

As a result, I wrote an analysis of these groups of voters--available here. 

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Dr. Christopher Cooper is Madison Distinguished Professor and Director of the Haire Institute for Public Policy at Western Carolina University. His book, Anatomy of a Purple State, was recently published by the University of North Carolina Press.

An Analysis of Challenged Voters in the 2024 NC Supreme Court Justice Election

 by Christopher Cooper

As the fight over approximately 60,000 challenged ballots in North Carolina's Supreme Court Election makes its way through the legal system, I thought it might be helpful to take a look at the challenges to determine whether (and if so, how) challenged voter differ from the overall pool of people who cast a vote in November, 2024 in North Carolina.

Because the analysis includes a lot of tables that can look wonky when put into blogger, I put them in a pdf (accessible here). 

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Dr. Christopher Cooper is Madison Distinguished Professor and Director of the Haire Institute for Public Policy at Western Carolina University. His book, Anatomy of a Purple State, was recently published by the University of North Carolina Press.

Why the Helene/Institutional Power Bill Found a Natural Home in North Carolina

By Christopher Cooper

Update: The veto override was successful, all three "Republicans to watch" identified below voted for the override and two Democrats were not in attendance. Oh, and although it missed the happy hour deadline I identified below, there was a lawsuit filed on one component of the law by the second happy hour after bill passage.

Please see the Time/Made by History piece linked below (and here) for the historical context and an argument for why NC seems to be home to so many bills like this.

Original post below

Sometime around noon today, the North Carolina House of Representatives will gavel into session and decide whether to override Governor Cooper's veto on S 382--a bill that was initially intended to streamline licensing for dentists who practice at medical schools, changed to one that included Helene relief in the title, and ultimately transmogrified into one that allocated some money to Helene relief, and added another 120 or so pages that, if passed, will fundamentally change who has access to the levers of power in North Carolina government.

In a piece in Made by History/Time Magazine, I wrote a bit about the history of these sorts of power grab bills in North Carolina and why North Carolina and other competitive states provide the perfect petri dish for more of the same to follow in the future.

These same themes are also explained in the introductory chapter of my recent book, Anatomy of a Purple State. 

None of this should imply, of course, that the current bill is unimportant, or business as usual. If passed, it will represent a fundamental restructuring of who has access to the levers of powers in North Carolina.

Gender Dynamics in the 2024 Election

By Susan Roberts and Whitney Ross Manzo

Undoubtedly, the defeat of a female presidential candidate in both 2016 and 2024 provides a unique opportunity to examine the continuing presence and nuances of a political gender gap. For example, one of the talking points in the aftermath of the 2024 election was that misogyny played a role in the result. 

Prior to 2024's Election Day, social media was flooded with sexist memes depicting Democratic candidate Kamala Harris as a sex worker, a silly woman who only speaks in “word salad,” and alleging that she was too weak to stand up to America’s enemies. “I have never seen this fierce of an ecosystem organized to carry far-right tropes, stereotypes, and narratives than this election,” #ShePersisted co-founder Kristina Wilfore told Politico’s Women Rule.

In such a negative and hurtful atmosphere, as the New York Times put it, “Many wonder if a woman will ever be president.”

Some Emerging thoughts on the 2024 Election in NC.

 by Christopher Cooper

I was going to wait until Friday (after county canvass) to post this, but these takeaways seem fairly durable--no matter what happens Friday. So, with all the caveats I can muster, here are five tentative takeaways from the 2024 elections in North Carolina.

Bitzer's Early Assessment of NC's 2024 Election

By Michael Bitzer

Yet again, North Carolina has seen another historic, but traditional, general election: in sum, Republican presidential and Democratic gubernatorial. The more time changes, the more the patterns stay the same.

But digging into a 48-hour post-analysis of the Old North State's general election (after finally getting a decent night's sleep), one finds some distinctive patterns and trends that give us a sense of what is going on this year in the electoral body politic of North Carolina.

Here's a first attempt to describe and consider some dynamics that I'm going to be very interested in diving deeper once the NC voter history data file is available (later in December after the election is certified). 

A Record 5.6M+ Ballots Cast, But Not A Record Turnout Percentage

As the electoral saying goes, it's all about turnout, turnout, turnout--and that's especially true in North Carolina's general elections. We'll have to wait and see about the partisan (and non-partisan, i.e. unaffiliated) dynamics at play and a host of other factors, but an early assessment of county-level turnout reveals some stark differences beyond the 5.6 million ballots cast (a record) that set the state turnout rate to 73 percent (two points lower than the historic high set in 2020). 

An Early Assessment of Early Voting in North Carolina

By Michael Bitzer and Christopher Cooper

Let's get the caveats out of the way early--we think that analyzing patterns in early voting data are important. They're important for telling us the method people are using to cast their votes. They're important to give us an early sense of whether we're seeing changes in the normal patterns we see. They're important (in this case) to let us understand how the devestation of Helene might (or might not) be affecting voting patterns. And they're important for reminding us how open and transparent our election system is in North Carolina.

Notice that we didn't say that they're important because they help us forecast the outcomes. That's because they're not. The problem with using these data to forecast winners and losers is that we are missing the election day vote, which will be a substantial proportion of the overall vote. Using early voting data to predict election outcomes would be like deciding that you can predict the outcome of a baseball game in the bottom of the 6th. We still have three more innings to go and anything can happen. 

With that out of the way, here are six important storylines worth highlighting after early voting.

What Can NC's Early Voting Data Tell Us (and What They Don't)

By Michael Bitzer and Christopher Cooper 

In person-early voting kicked off yesterday in North Carolina, but before a single in-person vote was cast, more than 65,000 votes had already been accepted across all 100 counties. 

A host of political scientists, political analysis, and political consultants will be reporting patterns from these early voting numbers. Look for posts from the Kevin Bacon of North Carolina politics, Gerry Cohen (no one in #ncpol is more than six degrees removed), as well as from The John Locke Foundation's Andy Jackson, and University of Florida Political Scientist Michael McDonald. We will (individually and collectively) probably throw some of these results into the mix, too. 

So, before we get to the season of early voting data, it's worth thinking through the mail and early voting process--why we do it, what we can learn, and what we can't. 

Analyzing the Helene-FEMA Designated NC Counties

By Michael Bitzer

Amid the absolute devastation and human impact that the remnants of Hurricane Helene left on the South, and particularly on western North Carolina, more and more discussion is focused on the political impact that could be felt in a quarter of North Carolina's counties.

I would be remiss if I didn't ask us all--political analysts, journalists/reporters, campaigns and their operatives, and the general public, outside the 25 counties of FEMA designation--to remember these are fellow North Carolinians who have been impacted in a such a manner that very few of us can fully comprehend and realize the magnitude of what they will be confronting for months, if not years. 

But as is always the case in our hyper-polarized nation, the immediate question beyond that consideration of the human toll is: 'what's the political impact'? 

One Way of Understanding How a Political Asteroid Hit NC Politics

By Michael Bitzer

To say that 2024 has had more than its fair share of political earthquakes is an understatement: two assassination attempts of a presidential candidate alone would garner that designation. But then there's the first presidential debate, the July 21 reshuffle of the Democratic presidential ticket, and the unreal amount of money flowing into just the presidential campaign alone.

There are political earthquakes, and then there are political asteroids. 

The asteroid of 2024's campaign hit yesterday (Thursday, Sept. 19) in the form of a CNN report detailing allegations against North Carolina's Republican lieutenant governor, and gubernatorial candidate, Mark Robinson.