Follow Up on NC's Registered Unaffiliated Voters: Where Are They?

With some more data crunching, I have looked at the 100 counties and ranked order the percentage of registered unaffiliated voters in each. The below map demonstrates different percentages of unaffiliated voters in each county:

In breaking down the generational cohorts, there are some counties where Millennials are truly driving the rise of unaffiliated registered voter (in the state, an average of 40% of Millennials are registered unaffiliated):

"We're #2!": Registered Unaffiliated Voters in North Carolina

It was this past Saturday that many who track NC politics had been waiting for--well, maybe 3 or 4 of us, but we saw it coming. Saturday's NC State Board of Elections data file showed that registered unaffiliated voters now outnumber registered Republicans statewide, and working towards the level of registered Democrats.

In looking at the September 9, 2017 data of the 6.7 million registered voters in the Old North State, registered unaffiliated voters were a total of 55 voters now above registered Republicans, marking the first time in the state's history that one of the two major parties was surpassed by voters who eschewed a party label in their voter registration.

So a couple of questions: first, where did this "rise of the unaffiliated" come from?

Analysis of Generations in the 2016 Election: Policy and Issue Differences Among the Generations

As a second post to yesterday's analysis on 2016's election and generations, the policy differences and issue stances of the four cohorts--Millennials (born after 1981), Generation Xers (born between 1965 and 1980), Baby Boomers (born between 1945 and 1965), and the Greatest Generation (born before 1945)--show key differences among the generational cohorts, much like the partisan and ideological perspectives.

First, much was made about the economic situation of the country. In the ANES 2016 data, a "retrospective" economic question was asked: has the economy gotten better, worse, or about the same since 2008?

Only the Greatest generation had a plurality that rated the economy worse than eight years ago, while Millennials had the strongest percentage of responses that the economy was better than when Obama took office.

With the controversy in North Carolina over House Bill 2, the state law that denied local governments the ability to enact non-discrimination ordinances to include transgender citizens, ANES asked a question regarding transgender citizens and policies regarding public facilities (bathrooms).

Only Millennials had a majority respond that transgender persons should be allowed to use the bathrooms of their identified gender, with both Baby Boomers and the Greatest Generation having at least a ten-point difference to the majority of using the bathroom of the gender they were born with.

On another issue involving the LGBTQ community, following the U.S. Supreme Court's sanctioning of same-sex marriages, the issue of adoption by gay couples has become another point of policy controversy.

While solid majorities in all four generational cohorts believed that gay and lesbian couples should be allowed to adopt, Millennials held the highest percentage of any cohort, while Greatest was the lowest. This may be related to the strength of religious faith among older voters, as documented by church attendance in another ANES question:

Pluralities of Millennials and Gen Xers reported attending church only a few times a year, while a solid majority of Greatest Generation reported attending church every week.

As one of the most controversial issues of the 2016 campaign, the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) generated a great deal of interest on both sides. But when asked about the effect of the ACA on health care costs, all four generations held similar beliefs.

All four generational cohorts held majority opinions that the ACA increased health care costs, but Millennials were over ten points lower than older voters in holding that belief.

With some states legalizing the sale and regulation of marijuana, the ANES asked whether marijuana should be legalized:

With a majority of Millennials favoring while those of the Greatest Generation opposing legalization of marijuana, pluralities of both Gen Xers and Baby Boomers favored the policy.

Another controversial proposal, espoused by Republican Donald Trump, was to build a wall between the United States and Mexico.

While pluralities of Gen Xers and Baby Boomers opposed the policy and a majority of Millennials were opposed, a slight plurality of Greatest Generation favored Trump's policy.

Another issue raised by the Republican presidential candidate was to close off the United States to Syrian refugees.

While no generational cohort supported the policy of allowing Syrian refugees into the nation, Millennials were the closest in their support-to-opposition, while older respondents were solidly oppose to the policy of allowing refugees from Syria into the U.S.

For many Republicans, the vacant Supreme Court seat of the late Antonin Scalia, and Obama's selection of Merrick Garland to fill the seat, was an important issue in the election.

With the strong majority support from Millennials for a Senate vote on Garland as the nominee, along with majority support from Gen Xers and Baby Boomers, it was only the Greatest Generation that was opposed to giving a vote to Garland and holding the seat open for the future president.

Finally, one of the interesting divisions between the Greatest Generation and the other generations was over government reducing income inequality:

With Millennials having the greatest support for favoring government reducing income inequality, the Greatest Generation had a bare plurality oppose such a policy.

Finally, I'll end with some issues regarding the various perceptions in the 2016 election.

First, the notion that the "world is changing and we should adjust":

Not surprising, those under the age of 50ish were more likely to either strongly or somewhat agree that change is warranted, while those over 50 disagreed with the statement.

When asked if "newer lifestyles are breaking down society," each generation had at least a plurality opinion:

But interesting, it was Baby Boomers (children of the 1960s) and the Greatest Generation that held majority views agreeing with the breaking of society by newer lifestyles.

All four generational cohorts agreed (strongly or somewhat) with the statement that the "country needs a strong leader to take us back to the true path," but again, the divisions between the younger generation and the older generation were most pronounced.

Finally, the belief in government's role (either that less government is better or that government should be doing more) has a significant divide between the youngest and oldest generation:

Similar to the partisan and ideological findings among the generations in the previous post, policy and perspectives also seem to create a sense of generational divide. As noted in the previous posting, Baby Boomers and Millennials are the two largest cohorts in last year's electorate, and the likelihood is that Millennials will take the plurality in the next presidential election. Whether their policy views will shape or determine future presidential candidates and party platforms is up for debate, but the sense of a shift in policy and perspectives coming should not surprise anyone paying attention in this hyper-polarized political environment of American politics.

Analysis of Generations in the 2016 Election: Partisanship, Ideology, Vote Choice, and Feelings Toward Clinton & Trump

In exploring more about the "generational shift" occurring in North Carolina politics (particularly from a voter registration and turnout approach--see previous posts on this blog site), I wanted to take a larger view of the differences between Millennials (those born after 1980) and Baby Boomers (those born between 1945 and 1965), with Generation Xers (born between 1965 and 1980) and the Greatest Generation (born before 1945).

One invaluable data resource to explore these differences is the 2016 American National Election Study, a massive survey of over 4,000 individuals who are contacted both before and after a presidential election. This survey asks a battery of questions, not just on politics but a variety of policy questions and a range of issues.

For those who would like to use the 2016 ANES data, the folks at UC-Berkeley have developed a website that allows users to put in various questions (by first finding the variable) from the survey and run cross-tabs to analyze the survey pool (it's a little tricky at first, but once you get the hang of it, you can spend a great deal of time running numbers).

For example, if you wanted to "recode" the "age" question of the respondents into generations (in 2016, Millennials were 18-35; Generation Xers were 36-51; Baby Boomers were 52-71; and Greatest Generation members were 72-90), you would find that the 2016 pool ("electorate") broke down into the following generational cohorts:

Using this division of the 2016 ANES data, I began to run cross-tabs of the data by different characteristics and policy questions asked in the survey. For example, what was the party self-identification by the generations?

Democrats (those who identify as strong, not strong, and leaners combined) are a plurality of both Millennials and Gen Xers, while Baby Boomers have a nearly even divide between the two political parties. Members of the Greatest Generation have a plurality of Republican self-identification. Barely a third of Millennials self-identify with the GOP, while nearly 18 percent of the youngest generation don't identify with either political party.

Along with partisan identification is ideological self-identification; the first analysis that I ran included the response for "haven't thought about it" to reflect possible uncertainty of one's ideological perspective (conservative, liberal, moderate, or haven't thought about it):

Not surprising, Millennials have the largest portion within a cohort that "haven't thought about it," while the oldest voters (Baby Boomers and the Greatest) have the lowest portions within their cohorts of "undecided" ideological identification.

Dropping the "undecideds/unknowns" out of the analysis paints an ideological picture of the four cohorts:

Conservatives claim a plurality of Baby Boomers (43.8 percent) and a majority of the Greatest Generation (50.9 percent), while Gen Xers are nearly evenly divided amongst the three categories. A plurality of Millennials, as documented in other surveys such as the Pew Research Center, are liberal in their ideology. But will Millennials potentially grow "more conservative" to match their older cohorts when they reach 50 years and older?

To compare, I went to the 2004 ANES Survey and, adjusting for the age categories, ran a comparison of ideological self-identification between the two election surveys.

While the oldest Millennials in 2004 were only 23 years old, as compared to 35 years old in 2016, there was an increase of Millennials who identified as conservative over the twelve year period, at the expense of those who identified as "moderate;" liberal identification remained fairly stable. Among the Greatest Generation, however, a substantial increase (10 points) in conservative ideological self-identification occurred between 2004 and 2016, again at the expense of those who identified as moderates.

Having looked at both the partisan and ideological self-identification of the generations, I looked at the presidential vote choice among the cohorts:

The almost mirror images among Millennials and Greatest generation cohorts is pretty striking: while nearly 55 percent of Millennials cast their ballots for Clinton, nearly 58 percent of the Greatest Generation went for Trump. While there was a 17 percentage vote gap between Greatest Generation voters for the two candidates, the 20 percentage vote gap among Millennials is significant, taking into account the likelihood that they are more liberal and more Democratic in identification.

The greatest vote share among the cohorts going to third-party candidates was, not surprisingly, among Millennial voters.

Much was made about the unpopularity of both major party's candidates. In looking at two questions about the presidential candidates and the respondents' feelings about the candidates, another generational divide emerged: first, as demonstrated in the combined "feelings thermometers" when asked about both Clinton and Trump.

A feeling thermometer asks a respondent, on a scale of zero to 100 (zero being ice cold, 100 being burning hot), to state a number as to how they felt about each candidate. In classifying "warmth" as being any response over 55 and "cool" as being any response under 45, I grouped each generation's responses to both candidates into the following "warmth" and "coolness" towards both Trump and Clinton.

While all four groups saw consistently similar responses to Clinton, typically at 50 to 53 "warmth" and 40 "cool," it was the generational differences in responding to Trump that stands out: while Millennials were barely more "warm" than "cool" to the GOP candidate, the 30 to 40 percentage gap among warmth and coolness by Baby Boomers and the Greatest Generation is striking.

Another set of questions asked about whether the respondents were "never proud of" either candidate or were "always disgusted by" a candidate.

While all generations were fairly consistent in their responses to the questions regarding "never proud of" or "always disgusted by" Hillary Clinton, the generational differences among the responses to Donald Trump shows that Millennials were the generation showing the greatest level of loss of pride in Trump and "always disgusted by" the GOP candidate.

But even with this level of disgust by Millennials, it clearly did not translate into enthusiasm in their voting:

Millennials had the lowest level of "strong preference" for their presidential candidate among the cohorts, while the Greatest Generation had three-fourths of respondents express strong preference for their respective candidate.

One of the more interesting findings regarding voting was a question posed in the ANES regarding the election integrity: does the respondent believe that the votes are being counted fairly?

For all of the talk about vote and ballot integrity, it was Millennials who had the lowest outlook on whether their vote would be counted fairly:

To wrap up, much of this ANES data is in line with another major study of the generational divide in American politics from the Pew Research Center. While older voters have higher participation rates than younger voters, and thus dominate the electoral fortunes, the tectonic shift that is currently underway in the country will reshape the political landscape.

In the next blog post, I'll be looking at this generational divide through the lenses of various policy issues and concerns, such as the state of the 2016 economy, transgender bathroom policy, the ACA's (Obamacare's) effect on health care costs, marijuana policy, and the role of government.

Half way through 2017, a look at NC's voter pool

As we enter the dog days of summer, I thought it would be good to take a look at the latest figures for the North Carolina registered voter pool at the half-way point of 2017, with data courtesy of the NC State Board of Elections.

First, the total pool of active and inactive voters stands at 6.7 million voters, down 2.5 percent from the 6.9 million recorded on January 1.

In the state, registering voters selected one of four party designations: Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, or unaffiliated. Over the recent past, the fastest growing group in terms of party registration has been the "unaffiliated" (more on this later). To date, the voter pool divides into the following party registration:

The Final NC Voting Data Has Been Released

Well, I know it's been a while since I've posted, but I needed some time away (and time to get caught up on my other jobs), but now that the North Carolina State Board of Elections has released some final data on voters, we can truly begin to dissect the 2016 electorate in the Old North State.

Much speculation was made leading up to the November 8 general election about what this year's NC electorate would look like, and with the dynamics of early voting presenting a whole new dynamic in the state, it was anyone's guess what the final picture would look like in the state.

North Carolina on Election Day: Some Basic Information & Political Dynamics (in Charts, of course)

Well, it's finally, finally, FINALLY here.

Just to give a sense of what North Carolina has seen over the past few general elections in presidential election years (of course, by charts):

Here are the presidential election results for North Carolina:

Here are the 2008 and 2012 exit polls for the state.

Here is a chart documenting the North Carolina registered voter pool from 2002-2016:

Here are the registered voter pools and the electorates in general elections by the percentages of party registration in North Carolina:

Ideology of North Carolina (as expressed in exit polls), 1996 to 2012:

North Carolina general elections by voting method: absentee (early) ballots versus election day ballots cast, 2004-2012:

Here are the turnouts based on registered voter groups in North Carolina, first by race:

The turnouts based on registered voter groups in North Carolina, by party registration:

Next, the turnout rates of North Carolina registered voters by age (note: these age bands are determined by the NC State Board of Elections):

Next, the composition of North Carolina general election electorates by race:

The composition of North Carolina general election electorates by party registration:

The composition of the North Carolina general election electorates by age categories:

2012 presidential election margin of victories in the 100 North Carolina counties with 13 counties (marked in yellow) delivering 50 percent of the state's votes:

Many of North Carolina's counties are becoming very polarized. The NC counties by partisan competitiveness or 'landslide' in margins of victories:

And then the North Carolina vote totals in these competitive/landslide counties:

I'll be posting more charts and data about North Carolina as Election Day rolls on. I'll be an election analyst for WFAE, Charlotte's NPR Station, starting at 7 PM this evening. Thank you all for following this blog; it has been a tremendous ride. Michael

UDPATE: I ran this analysis back after the March 2016 presidential primary in North Carolina, and I think it speaks to the potential support for Donald Trump in this general election. I ran a number of different 'factors' against the county performance for Trump, and the most 'influential' factor was the county's percentage of college-degree holders:

Nearly 50 percent of Trump's 2016 NC county presidential primary support can be explained by the college's percentage of those who hold Bachelor's degrees or higher, and that is an inverse relationship (meaning, the lower the county's percentage of holding a Bachelor's degree, the higher Trump's support was).

UPDATE at 4:41 PM: above were some 'competitive/landslide' maps and data on North Carolina's 100 counties. In current state politics, the divide between urban and rural areas of the state has grown more pronounced, but suburban areas tend to be the most Republican areas in the state, based on total numbers cast for presidential candidates in 2012 in the three areas:

For Democrats, breaking into the spread in suburban North Carolina and making sure the urban areas return large numbers (and perhaps spread the difference out more) will be key to winning in the state.  With three-quarters of the votes come from urban & suburban counties, these will be the key areas to be watching tonight.

Further Analysis of NC's 2016 Absentee Voters: Their 2012 Voting Methods

I looked into North Carolina's voters who have cast accepted absentee ballots and paired with information as to whether they were registered in 2012 and, if so, their 2012 voting methods if they cast ballots four years ago.

In terms of the 2.8 million North Carolinians who cast accepted in-person absentee ballots and were able to match their 2012 registration status (whether they were registered before or after 2012) and, if they were registered, did they vote and what voting method (mail-in, in-person early absentee, on election day) did they use. 

For the overall state-wide numbers:

 

So, among the 2016 in-person early voters in NC, 57 percent of them used the same method, with another 2 percent voting early through mail-in ballots.

There was 19 percent of this year's in-person early voters who changed their voting method from waiting until election day 2012 and decided to cast an early in-person ballot this year, with another 22 percent having not voted in 2012 (but were registered) combined with those voters who registered after 2012's election. 

In response to a reporter's query, I broke these voters into their party registration (registered Democrat, registered Republican, and registered unaffiliated (and yes, there are Libertarians, but their numbers are small)) and ran the same analysis:

Among the partisans, we see that majorities of this year's registered Democrats and Republicans who voted early in-person used the same method in 2012. However, there is one noticeable difference: registered Republicans had 21 percent shift from voting on election day four years ago to casting in-person absentee ballots this year, while 17 percent of registered Democrats did the same thing (cast ballots on election day in 2012 but cast early in-person this year).  

Among this year's early unaffiliated voters, 19 percent (matching the state-wide percentage) voted on election day in 2012. So Republicans have drawn more of their voters into the early voting rather than voting on election day than did unaffiliated or Democrats this year. 

But another interesting dynamic is present among registered unaffiliated voters, who I consider the wild card in this year's election: nearly one-third (32 percent) of registered unaffiliated voters who have cast in-person absentee ballots this year were either registered in 2012 but didn't vote (6 percent) or registered after the 2012 election year (26 percent). These 'new voters' are higher than the same kind of partisan registered voters (registered Democrats at 18 percent combined while 20 percent of registered Republicans combined). 

So, among the 2.8 million early voters who cast accepted in-person absentee ballots, 238,430 registered unaffiliated voters, 224,445 registered Democrats, and 174,779 registered Republicans could be considered 'new' voters in this year's general election. 

Differences in Absentee Ballots: 2012 vs. 2016 by Party Registration in North Carolina

With the dramatic increases in absentee ballots in North Carolina and preparing for the general election day, a question from a Twitter follower was, "what areas saw the most changes among absentee voters?"

Using information on accepted absentee ballots in both 2012 and this year (with some changes in the numbers still expected), I was able to run cross-tabs of the different party registration based on two key factors: region and race.

First, the Democrats saw a very slight drop in their absentee ballots (both mail-in and in-person) from 2012's totals. In looking at the cross-tabs by region (urban, suburban, and rural counties) by race, the following demonstrates the changes in the Democratic voter base among absentee voters:

Among white voters, Democrats overall saw a 5 percent increase in registered members of their party showing up to cast absentee ballots, but there were noticeable differences by region: rural white Democrats were slightly down, while urban and most notably suburban white Democrats were up over their numbers from four years ago.

The critical change from 2012, to the negative, is among black Democrats. Only among suburban black Democrats was there an increase from four years ago, while among urban and rural black Democrats, the drops were noticeable to have an overall drop of 8 percent from 2012's numbers. 

Among all other races, however, registered Democrats saw, at times, dramatic increases in their numbers from 2012's totals. And while some of the changes were due to what would appear to be small numerical changes (for example, Indian Americans went from 7,372 to 7,485), registered Asian Democrats went from 8,146 to 12,345, while those voters who classify themselves as 'other races' went from 17,220 to 24,677.

Overall, registered Democrats saw their greatest decline in their numbers from rural counties, down 10 percent (from 324,373 to 290,856) and contributing to the slight decrease in their overall numbers. Yet suburban Democrats, going from 200,445 to 215,107, showed the greatest increase. 

Among registered Republicans, the total numbers went up by 13 percent, but there were slight differences among the regions and racial categories. 

While white Republicans were up 12 percent, it was suburban white Republicans who were up the largest in their numbers (up 30 percent), while white urban Republicans were up on 4 percent. 

While the black Republican numbers seem dramatic, it was an overall difference between 10,949 in 2012 and 10,067 this year in terms of ballots being cast.

Again, the other races were among the consistent growth areas, but like with black Republicans, the numbers were fairly small: Asian Republicans from 3,624 to 4,865; Indian Americans from 1,937 to 2,776; and multi-racial Republican voters from 1,604 to 1,985. Among those voters who did not indicate a race on their voter registration form, the noticeable increases was from a total of 9,783 in 2012 to 17,029. Overall, like with registered Democrats, suburban registered Republicans saw the greatest overall regional increase, of 31 percent. 

Finally, the huge increase of registered unaffiliated voters is dramatic in comparison to their partisan counterparts. 

White registered unaffiliated voters saw an overall increase of 41 percent, but among suburban white registered unaffiliated voters, it was an increase of 57 percent. 

Among black unaffiliated voters, who are typically more from the Millennial generation, it was again suburban black unaffiliated voters showing the largest increase. 

Again, like the partisans, all other races saw huge increases among unaffiliated voters. Among Asian registered unaffiliated voters, their numbers in 2012 was 10,422; this year, there was 17,340. The other numerical large-scale increase was among 'other' races, which went from 12,850 four years ago to 20,670 this year. 

The accepted absentee ballots' electorate could be anywhere from 60 to 65 percent of the total electorate (ballots cast); in 2012, 61 percent of the ballots in that election came before Election Day (56 percent from in-person absentee ballots, with the remaining 5 percent from mail-in absentee ballots). If the overall electorate increases beyond 4.5 million ballots (as it was in 2012), then the Election Day electorate will be critical to watch as the absentee ballots may be on the lower end of the 60 percent range. 

Some Exploration of the True Wildcard in NC's Early Voting: Registered Unaffiliated Voters

With the near-final numbers posted in terms of North Carolina's absentee voting before Tuesday's election, the true wildcard seems to be the huge spike in registered unaffiliated voters who have cast a quarter of all the absentee ballots.

Their numbers are up over 40 percent from where they were in 2012 at the end of the early voting period, so I decided to look more closely at these voters who could potentially hold the balance for which party wins in North Carolina.

First, a general overview of the state's unaffiliated voters: where registered partisans (Democrats and Republicans) in North Carolina tend to be older, registered unaffiliated voters skew younger, due to the growing influence of Millennial voters; nearly 40 percent of registered Millennials are unaffiliated.

We see this influence of younger voters in breaking down each party registration category. Voters under the age of 51 are a majority (55 percent) of the registered unaffiliated voters who have cast accepted absentee ballots so far in this year's election in North Carolina.

One of the key dynamics going on in North Carolina's voter pool is the fact that most Millennial voters (who are the second largest generation cohort in the state's voter pool) live in urban counties; these urban areas also dominate the state's politics and voter pool as well.

With urban counties making up 54 percent of the state's voter pool, and Millennials at 30 percent of the voter pool, this combination is shifting the dynamics of the state.

I next isolated all of the state's registered Millennial voters and looked at their location and party registration.

With 61 percent of Millennials living in urban counties, they tend to split between registering as Democrats and unaffiliated, with 20 percent registering as Republicans.  In the other areas, registered Millennials in North Carolina tend to be much more unaffiliated than partisan. 

So, this gives us a sense of Millennials and their influence in North Carolina politics.

Now, we turn back to the unaffiliated absentee voters who may be the key to this year's election in North Carolina. 

One crude 'proxy' that might get at how these unaffiliated voters are potentially casting their ballots for the general election would be if these unaffiliated voters cast ballots in the March 2016 primary in North Carolina.

For unaffiliated voters, they have to pick a party to cast a ballot in for the primary election, and we can match their March 2016 voting records of which ballot they requested with their current status. Granted, this 'proxy' may not necessarily capture all aspects of the dynamics of a voter, simply due to the partisan nature of many North Carolina counties. To have any influence in a county's politics, especially if you are in the minority party, you may have to be a registered unaffiliated voter and cast your primary vote in the party opposite your true partisanship, and then return home in the general election. Or perhaps a registered unaffiliated voted in a party's primary to vote against a particular candidate; again, this proxy may not be the best one out there, other than asking "for whom did you cast your general election ballot for?"

With those caveats said, among the 807,000 unaffiliated voters who have cast accepted absentee ballots so far, the overall composition of this group by generation and region point to a distinct slant:

Among the early unaffiliated voters, 38 percent are urban Millennials and Generation Xers (under the age of 51), with another 19 percent being urban Baby Boomers. North Carolina's urban areas have been trending more and more Democratic in nature, as evidence by Obama receiving 56 percent of the urban county presidential vote in 2012. 

We also know that Millennials tend to be more Democratic-leaning in their partisan affiliation. 

In using the 'proxy' of voting in North Carolina's March primary, the thinking is that we could see a sense of where unaffiliated voters may 'see' themselves as partisans. 

Of the 807,000 unaffiliated voters who have cast accepted absentee ballots so far for the November election, 44 percent (348,000) cast ballots in one of the two major parties' primaries in March of 2016. 

Of that 348,000 primary voters, 56 percent cast ballots in the Republican primary, while 44 percent cast them in the Democratic primary.

So, one would think that NC's unaffiliated voters are perhaps more leaners to the Republican Party than the Democratic Party. 

But in looking at these possible lean-unaffiliated voters, a plurality (47 percent) of the GOP-primary voters and 67 percent of the Democratic-primary voters in March were urban county voters.  In total, of the 348,000 March primary voters, 56 percent of them were urban county voters. 

Among those urban county unaffiliated voters, Millennials and Generation Xers made up 50 percent of the ballots being cast in the two parties. And of those two generations, which party did they cast their ballots in the primary?

So in urban counties, which have dominate the November accepted absentee vote totals so far with 55 percent of the accepted ballots cast, urban unaffiliated voters who are under the age of 51 and who cast ballots in the March primary election did so towards the Democratic primary (63 percent) over the Republican primary (37 percent). 

Granted, half of the urban county unaffiliated voters who voted in March split between those over and under the age of 51, but making a claim that a majority of unaffiliated voters are more Republican-leaning than Democratic may be masked by the voter's location and a more detailed analysis of which party they participated in for the March primary.

Ultimately, this may be an exercise in probability, simply because of the 807,000 unaffiliated voters who have cast accepted absentee ballots for Tuesday, the majority--57 percent--of them didn't participate in the March primary and we have no idea of how they may lean in their partisan affiliation. And of these non-March primary voters, over one-third of them (36%) are Millennial voters.

Based on the possible different interpretations of the above data, we should probably continue with the belief that this pool of 800,000 unaffiliated voters, along with another chunk of unaffiliated voters on Tuesday, will tip the balance of partisan power one way or the other in North Carolina. There's just too much uncertainty about this influential and unknown group of voters to make a call one way or the other, but different ways of looking at them can produce potential benefits or disadvantages to one party or the other.