By Michael Bitzer
Through the first 10 days of early voting, North Carolina’s 2026 primary electorate is not just ahead of past cycles—it is potentially reshaping expectations about which party is energized, who is participating, and how they’re voting.
In daily totals1, 2026 is standing out as a remarkable primary election so far—33 percent ahead of the 2022 mid-term primary early voting (on the same date) and 16 percent ahead of 2024’s primary early voting.
We’ll need to watch carefully a couple aspects to this trend: will the last week taper off in terms of daily numbers, are these consistent/persistent primary voters (compared to the last two primary elections), and if so, are they shifting their ballot casting earlier, or new voters coming (more on this later)?
What’s Driving Turnout So Far?
This year’s “competitive” Senate contest, as the top of the ticket race, is perceived to be on the Republican side, yet turnout enthusiasm is disproportionately Democratic. Could this be driven by an ‘issue environment’ rather than ‘candidate competition,’ or more a ‘banking’ behavior by reliable Democratic primary voters this year?
Compared to 2022’s mid-term primary, Democratic primary numbers are 55 percent ahead of where they were four years ago, while Republican numbers are 11 percent ahead. And compared to 2024’s presidential primary election (and remember—two year’s ago the ‘competitive contest’ was on the Republican side), Democrats are 47 percent ahead of their same day total, while Republicans are down 11 percent from their 2024 same day total.
And there’s another indication of where the interest and enthusiasm resides.
Where Are Unaffiliated NC Primary Voters Going?
For folks unfamiliar with North Carolina’s party primary system and who can participate, N.C. is a ‘semi-closed’ primary state: meaning, those who are registered with a political party can only vote in that party, but those who are registered Unaffiliated (the largest group of NC registered voters) can pick which party to cast a primary ballot.
In research with my colleagues Drs. Christopher Cooper, Whitney Ross Manzo, and Susan Roberts, we found the ‘unmoored’ Unaffiliated NC voter (one who isn’t consistently voting in one party primary) tends to float to whichever party has the ‘more competitive’ race—not surprising, in that they tend to go where the electoral action is.
But this year, the Democratic Party primary enthusiasm is evident in the numbers of Unaffiliateds going to that side of the political primary aisle, with 8,000 more going to the Democratic ballot than GOP ballot.
Granted, because of the increased number of registered Democratic voters casting accepted ballots (46K more) than Republicans, the Unaffiliated percentage in the Democratic primary is smaller than on the Republican side.
What Are the Demographics of NC’s Primary Voters So Far?
When compared to the voter registration pool, the overall primary electorate is racially polarized in predictable ways and older for both parties than the state’s registration pool, yet there are some subtle differences at the margins in terms of age.
In the 7.7 million NC voter registration pool, White non-Hispanic voters are 63 percent, with Black non-Hispanics at 19 percent. But the primary electorate so far has a White percentage at 69 percent and Black percentage at 24 percent.
And not surprisingly, there’s a racial divide in the casting of party primary ballots, with 56 percent of Whites voting on the Republican side and 98 percent of Blacks voting on the Democratic side of the aisle. Three-quarters of Hispanic/Latino primary voters are selecting the Democratic primary ballot, and all other races/unknown are well over two-thirds picking the Democratic primary.
In looking at age, the overall primary electorate is heavily skewed heavily older:
The median age is 68 in both primaries, with the center of the distribution nearly identical.
Boomers are 58 percent of the voter primary pool so far; and when combined with Silent generation, over two-thirds of primary voters are 62 years or older.
While Millennials and Generation Z are 44 percent of the state’s registered voters, they are only 13 percent of the primary voters so far. And these younger voters (under the age of 45) are heavily more Democratic primary voters.
This also shows in a histogram of both party’s primary voters by age:
Through broad age bands:
- Under 35: Democrats 7.3%, Republicans 5.7% That’s about a 1.6 percentage point Democratic advantage among younger voters.
- 55+: Democrats 77.4%, Republicans 79.4% That’s about a 2.0 percentage point Republican advantage among older voters.
So far, both parties’ early-vote primary electorates are old—and remarkably similar at the center. The median voter in both the Democratic and Republican primaries is 68 years old. Where the two start to diverge is at the margins: Democrats have a slightly larger share of younger voters, while Republicans have a slightly larger share of seniors.
How About Distribution of Both Parties Across North Carolina?
Both parties have respective ‘bases’ of voters in geographic areas: Democrats tend to be more concentrated in urban counties (think Wake County with Raleigh, Mecklenburg County with Charlotte, Guilford County with Greensboro, etc.), while Republicans are more diffused but have strongest presence in the traditional mountains-into-Piedmont GOP axis from the upper north-western counties into the center of the state (think of the mountain Surry County into the Piedmont’s Randolph county).
And this state-wide distribution is playing out as well for both parties:
Taking the difference between Democratic and Republican primary ballots cast so far (in the following map), you can see the most Democratic primary counties so far in Durham, Orange, and several rural Black Belt counties (Northampton, Halifax, and Warren), while the most Republican counties are in the mountains: Mitchell, Graham, Yadkin, Alexander, and Cherokee.
The above map shows a clear urban blue / rural red divide. Wake and Durham anchor the Triangle; Buncombe (Asheville) is a deeper blue island in the west, as it traditionally is in general elections; and the rural Coastal Plain (Black Belt) leans Democratic, while the mountains and Piedmont foothills lean heavily Republican.
Are 2026 Primary Voters “Consistent” or “New”? And Are They Creatures of Voting Methods?
With the data of voters’ past vote history and methods, we can see if the 2026 primary voters participated in the past two primary elections, and if so, what vote methods did they use.
For the previous mid-term primary election, we see a healthy number of voters who didn’t participate in the 2022 primary election, while a plurality used in-person early ballots as they did four years ago.
In summary:
- Those who voted early in 2022 primary (45 percent of the total so far): 2026 Mail 0.51% | 2026 In-Person 99.49%
- Those who did not vote in 2022 primary (which makes up 36 percent of the primary ballots so far): 2026 Mail 2.46% | 2026 In-Person 97.54%
- Those who voted election day in 2022 primary (18 percent of the total so far): 2026 Mail 0.77% | 2026 In-Person 99.23%
- Those who voted by mail in 2022 primary (1 percent of the total so far): 2026 Mail 34.14% | 2026 In-Person 65.86%
While 2022 prior mail voters are dramatically more likely to be requesting mail again in 2026, even among 2022 mail voters, most are switching to in-person in 2026.
For 2024 primary voters:
Again, in summary:
- Voted early in 2024 primary (total 54 percent so far): 2026 Mail 0.38% | 2026 In-Person 99.62%
- Those who did not vote in 2024 primary (total of 26 percent of early ballots so far): 2026 Mail 2.62% | 2026 In-Person 97.38%
- Voted election day in 2024 primary (total 19 percent so far): 2026 Mail 0.60% | 2026 In-Person 99.40%
- Voted by mail in 2024 primary (1 percent of total ballots so far): 2026 Mail 54.53% | 2026 In-Person 45.47%
For these voters (2024 primary and 2026 so-far primary), the “mail habit” is even stickier looking back to 2024 than 2022. A voter who cast a mail ballot in the 2024 primary is basically a coin flip to be requesting mail again in 2026 (and that’s huge relative to everyone else). Otherwise, it’s in-person early voting that yet again dominates to date. When the polls close on March 3rd, we’ll have a sense whether N.C. voters prefer in-person early voting against voting on Election Day.
Both parties have substantial majorities of 2026 primary voters (so far) who voted in both the 2022 and 2024 primaries, but Democrats have two-out-of-ten of their voters who didn’t participate in the past two primaries, compared to 17 percent of Republican primary voters.
Based on statistical analysis of the 2026 early voters in the Democratic and Republican primaries, the difference of 3.48 percentage points indicate that early Democratic primary voters are significantly more likely to have skipped both the 2022 and 2024 primaries compared to Republicans. The effect is modest in absolute terms, but highly statistically significant given the large sample size.2
And what about these ‘missed-both’ 2026 primary voters?
Among those who missed both of the past two primary elections, 68 percent were registered on or before the 2022 primary,3 meaning they were eligible for both primaries and truly skipped them. Nine percent have registration dates between the 2022 and 2024 primaries, so they could only have voted in 2024 (and missed it).
Most importantly, two out of ten—or 21 percent—registered after the 2024 primary; they could not have voted in either 2022 or 2024.
In breaking down the ‘missed both’ between the Democratic and Republican primaries, Republicans in the missed-both group are a bit more concentrated in the registered on/before 2022 bucket (71.81% Rep vs 65.15% Dem), while Democrats have a higher share in the registered after 2024 bucket (23.16% Dem vs 18.27% Rep).
In sum, the “Democrats missed-both” group includes relatively more people who simply weren’t eligible for those earlier primaries. And if this trend holds over the final week, could the Democratic “new energy” story be partially about new registrants—not just resurrected drop-offs?
What to Watch in the Final Week
Ten days in, three patterns are defining the 2026 primary electorate.
First, Democratic engagement is clearly outpacing recent cycles. Whether driven by issue environment, organizational mobilization, or perceived stakes, the early numbers suggest Democrats are banking primary votes at a rate well ahead of both the 2022 midterm primary and the 2024 presidential primary.
Second, the electorate remains structurally old. The median voter in both primaries is 68 years old. While Democrats hold a modest edge among younger voters, both parties’ coalitions are overwhelmingly anchored by Boomers and older voters. The generational participation gap remains a defining feature of North Carolina.
Third, voting behavior is habitual. Early voters tend to remain early voters. Mail voters—especially those from 2024—are far more likely to repeat that method, though they are a smaller percentage overall. But the overwhelming number of in-person early voters may continue a trend of North Carolinians ‘banking their ballots’ before the election day.
Primary participation itself also shows durability: most voters casting ballots this year participated in at least one of the last two primaries. Where Democrats differ slightly is in attracting a somewhat larger share of voters who were either newly registered or absent in prior cycles.
Moving towards next weekend, the open questions are straightforward:
- Does turnout maintain this pace through the final week?
- Do Republicans close the enthusiasm gap to Democrats?
- And does the appearance of Democratic enthusiasm reflect intensity that carries into the general election—or simply a primary electorate skewed toward reliable partisans?
As with any half-completed primary early voting cycle, there are important caveats to express, most notably that early voting primary numbers don’t predict November dynamics. But they do tell us who is engaged right now. And ten days in, that engagement is disproportionately Democratic, heavily senior, and deeply habitual.
That’s the story—at least so far. Once we get the final data next Sunday, we’ll see how these trends continued through the final week, or (as can be the case in North Carolina), further surprises await.
1
This analysis focuses on those in-person and mail-in early ballots that have been accepted (and includes those cured to date and exempted) through February 21, 2026.
2
For the stat geeks out there, the n of the early voter file as of 2-21-26 = 323,652). The Chi-square test: χ² = 612.45, p < 0.001, with two-proportion z-test: z = 24.75, p < 0.001, and the 95% CI for difference: [3.21%, 3.76%].
3
As of the February 1, 2026 voter registration data file.
