Putting Tricia Cotham's Party Switch in Context

By Christoper Cooper and Michael Bitzer

Donald Trump's indictment might have received the most political attention last week and Democrats won a critical state supreme court race in Wisconsin, but the most politically consequential event in the United States might have taken place eight hours away from the eye of the Trump storm. On April 5, 2023, Tricia Cotham, a Democratic lawmaker in North Carolina's State House, announced that she was switching political parties. Elected as a Democrat, Cotham is now a Republican.

Cotham's move essentially rendered Governor Cooper's veto ineffective. The Republicans now have supermajority control of both chambers of the North Carolina General Assembly and can override Cooper's veto without securing a single Democratic vote. 

The news about Cotham raised all sorts of questions about party switching in general, and how it potentially fits into a seismic shift in North Carolina politics.

ONSP on the Monkey Cage Blog

Drs. Christopher Cooper and Michael Bitzer look at the question of whether Democrats are being "strategic crossover voters" in Republican primaries and find that, at least in the Madison Cawthorn Republican primary for the NC 11th Congressional District, enough registered Democrats-turned-Unaffiliateds participated in the GOP primary to perhaps doom the first-term controversial congressman.

Their analysis is at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/06/16/democrats-republicans-primaries-georgia-colorado-voting/. 

Year in Review and Looking Forward for North Carolina's 7.2 Million Voters

By Michael Bitzer

With the dawn of a new year, the race to the November general election is (with a primary blip) well underway. And as North Carolina prepares for yet another competitive mid-term election environment, a review of where the state's voter pool stands, and the changes last year brought about, is in order. This post takes a look at where North Carolina's voter pool stands at the beginning of mid-term election year and who registered and switched parties in 2021.

2022 Begins with 7.2 Million NC Voters

Using the NC State Board of Elections data set for the December 25, 2021 (a data set wasn't available on Saturday, Jan. 1), the 7.2 million registered voters continue some key trends that have been developing over time, and one important trend will likely come to fruition in the early part of the new year.

For comparison, I used the January 9, 2021 voter registration data, which saw registered Democrats at 35.5 percent of the total pool, with registered unaffiliated voters at 33.2 percent and registered Republicans at 30.6 percent. 

As of December 25, registered Democrats slipped to 34.7 percent, unaffiliateds rose to 34.3 percent, and Republicans were marginally down to 30.3 percent. 

Exploring NC's Republican Switchers

By Susan Roberts & Michael Bitzer

As has been noted in several news articles, numerous North Carolina registered Republican voters have left the party to another registration, most notably going 'unaffiliated' in their party status. Some speculation for the switch could be due to the storming of the Capitol at January 6th insurrection.  

Yet even before the divisive nature of the 2020 election came to a head, public opinion polls have shown a deepening and unsettling frustration with the two major parties since the 2000s. However, a closer examination is needed of the actual number of North Carolina Republicans abandoning their party label in the context of the 2020 Election, its aftermath, and potentially in light of the events of January 6. 

Party registration can be fluid, and in this day of intense party polarization, it might be thought that only the true partisan—the loyalists, the die-hards—associates with a party, while other voters may want to avoid the public party label for the comfort of being ‘unaffiliated’ in their party registration status (granted, this could be just one of many reasons). Even before the divisive election of Donald Trump in 2016, some Americans were calculating the social desirability of identifying with either party. 

But while a few weeks data can paint a picture of the party switchers, we decided to look more broadly and deeply into the data to see what has happened since the general election last year, and in particular who these North Carolina GOP defectors are, based on some key demographic details. 

Party Switchers in the North Carolina Electorate

By Chris Cooper

The makeup of a state’s electorate can change in a few ways. The first is what is euphemistically known as “generational replacement”—people enter the electorate when they come of age and they exit the electorate when they shuffle off their mortal coil. People can also register at any point after they reach 18—large-scale registration can spur small pockets of registration and affect the shape of the electorate. Voters can also from one state to another—influencing the electorate in the state they leave and that they move to. A small, but important number of registered voters also have their voting rights temporarily suspended after committing a felony.

While all of these patterns are important, the partisan makeup of the electorate can also change when registered voters switch parties. Examining these patterns in party switching can give us signals about how the opinions, attitudes and behaviors of the electorate may be changing.

How Many "Party Switchers" Are There in North Carolina for the 2016 Election?

Based on some entries and Twitter interactions, I've been asked "how many North Carolina registered voters have switched their party registration since the 2012 general election?"

In analyzing the active and inactive North Carolina registered voters as of July 30, 2016 through two data sets from the NC State Board of Elections, I was able to identify those voters who cast ballots in the 2012 general election and are still registered in the state: a total of a little over 4 million voters out of 6.6 million registered voters. The data for this analysis is:

		Voted in 2012's General Election as:
		Democrat	Unaffiliated	Republican	Libertarian
2016 Party Registration	Democrat	1,727,420	17,411	7,361	412
	Unaffiliated	51,133	882,859	30,882	1,023
	Republican	29,894	13,924	1,306,740	416
	Libertarian	512	740	898	8,298
		1,808,959	914,934	1,345,881	10,149

Out of those 4 million voters, 1.8 million voters were registered Democratic voters and cast ballots in 2012's general election. Now, as of July 30, 2016, the breakdown of party registration among those 2012 Democrats is:

Out of the 4 million voters, 1.3 million voters were registered Republican voters who cast ballots in 2012's general election. Now, as of July 30, the party registration breakdown among those 2012 Republicans is:

Finally, nearly 915,000 voters out of the 4 million were registered unaffiliated voters who cast ballots in 2012's general election, and now, as of July 30, their party registration breakdown is:

So, out of the 4 million 7-30-16 active and inactive NC registered voters who cast ballots in 2012's general election, 152,755 voters have switched their party registrations from four years ago to now, equaling 4 percent of the total 4 million.  The most "loyal" registered party group were Republicans, followed by unaffiliated, and then registered Democrats--but all of the groups saw at least 95 percent of their 2012 voters stay with their 2012 party affiliation.