Episode 2 of the ONSP "Vlog": Candidates, Conventions, and Campaigns in the Age of COVID

It's been over a month since our inaugural "vlog" (or video-log) from the four of us, and as we get ready for the fall semester, we thought it would be a good time to get the crew back together and discuss the news of the week so far: Joe Biden's selection of Kamala Harris as his vice presidential nominee, the upcoming virtual DNC and RNC, and how candidates are going to deal with campaigning in this COVID environment. And a few other random topics that you can now find in two formats:

The first version of our Episode 2 is on Youtube, found here:

We've also made the vlog into a podcast, hosted on Soundcloud and found here, along with the inaugural vlog/now in podcast format. 

Thanks as always for reading and watching/listening to the Old North State Politics! 

NC's Requests for Absentee by Mail Ballots Continues Its Exponential Growth

By Michael Bitzer

A month ago, on July 13, I wrote a piece that North Carolina had nearly 70,000 requests for absentee by mail (ABM) ballots. Two weeks ago, I wrote an update that North Carolina's requests for ABM ballots would hit 100,000 sometime that week. Little did I realize that within two days of posting that, the requests did pass 100K. And as of today (Monday, August 10), we are working our way towards 200,000 requests (again, I'll say for fun) likely within the next week. 

As of August 10, the total requests so far is 163,374, which is 70 percent of 2016's total requests (a little over 231,000) and 82 percent of the final ABM ballots that were submitted and accepted for ballots cast (a little under 200,000). In considering this number of total requests so far, North Carolina is currently 7 times ahead of the same day total requests in 2016. 

As I do on the Twitter account for the blog in greater detail, I'll give the general trends, followed by a breakdown of an important voter characteristic, and then provide what could be a model for looking ahead to an important date of Friday, September 4, when the first batch of absentee by mail ballots are scheduled to be mailed to voters.

The Surprisingly Long History of Vote-by-Mail Debates in North Carolina (link inside)

The Asheville Citizen Times has been kind enough to give me some space to write about the 2020 election about once a month. This month's column is about the (surprisingly long) history of vote-by-mail debates in North Carolina and I thought it might be of interest to readers of this blog. Please consider clicking through to read the whole piece and, if you're not already a subscriber, please consider a subscription to the Citizen Times.

By Chris Cooper  

 

It’s hard to turn on the television, click on a web site or scroll through your social media feed without reading or hearing someone declare that our current political moment is unprecedented. And, to some degree, they’re right. After all, political polarization is the highest it’s been since the Civil War, we’re only a few months since the president of the United States was impeached and the country is facing a pandemic the likes of which we have not seen in nearly a century. At the same time, treating all political debates as if they are unprecedented and something that can only happen in today’s political environment can obscure patterns that can help us better understand our current political situation.

Lay of the Political Landscape: An Analysis of the 2020 North Carolina State Senate Races

This is the second in a series regarding the 'state of the field' when it comes to the North Carolina General Assembly, the U.S. House districts, the gubernatorial contest, U.S. Senate race, and the presidential contest in North Carolina. Between now and early September, each week will see a new post analyzing the data and dynamics and giving some assessment (but not a forecast) of what to look for in November. This week we posted an analysis of the state's 7 million registered voters, and continue this week with the upper chamber of the General Assembly, the North Carolina state senate. In the coming weeks, we'll have the companion legislative analysis for the state house, along with the congressional, gubernatorial, U.S. Senate, and presidential contests in the Old North State. 

By Chris Cooper and Michael Bitzer

It is relatively easy to keep up with national and state-level races. Polling results, campaign finance data, and career details of the candidates are available to anyone with access to a library card, newspaper subscription, or keyboard. State legislative races, however, can be more difficult to follow. Their sheer number makes them hard to keep track of (170 in North Carolina), and the diffuse nature of state politics means that there’s not “one source” to find most of this information across all states. 

This is a problem not just for politicos, but for anyone who wants to follow what we would argue is the most important policy-making body for issues that affect people’s lives. Concerned about voting rights/voter security, abortion rights/right to life, gun rights/gun regulation, the quality of the roads you drive on, or economic development issues? The fault lines on those issues lies squarely in the purview of the state legislature. 

In order to attempt to bridge the gap between importance and knowledge, this entry provides a brief(ish) update and analysis on the 50 races for North Carolina Senate in 2020. One of us (the one with the trademark bow-tie) posted a similar analysis in February. This one builds off of that base with some new data and some new analysis. 

Lay of the Political Landscape: NC's 7M Registered Voters

As we draw closer to this month's nomination conventions and then Labor Day's 'unofficial' official start to the fall campaign season, Old North State Politics will be running a series looking at the 'lay of the political land' when it comes to North Carolina's pool of registered voters, the General Assembly, the thirteen U.S. House districts, and the gubernatorial, U.S. Senate, and presidential contests. Between now and early September, each week will have a new post analyzing the data and dynamics and giving some assessment (but not a forecast) of what to look for in November. This week we start with a ground-level analysis of the state's registered voter pool, followed later this week with the upper chamber of the General Assembly, the North Carolina state senate. 

By Michael Bitzer

As we inch towards the general election on Tuesday, November 3rd, we are starting to see North Carolina's voter registration pool shape up, with some key demographics and factors at play in the eligible pool of voters. And even with COVID-19, the numbers are on pace with four years ago, although there are some interesting patterns shaping up within the voter pool. 

Recently, North Carolina again went over 7 million registered voters, which the state has done before, but due to comprehensive maintenance of the voter rolls, that number dipped below 7M in January 2019 thanks to the removed voters.

With the August 1, 2020 statewide data file, we can look at not just the current standing of registered voters in the Old North State, but we can also get a profile of this year's registered voters who have been added to the pool so far.

Of the 7,040,308 voters in the August 1 data file, party registrations have remained consistent throughout the year: 36 percent are registered Democrats, 33 percent registered Unaffiliated, and 30 percent registered Republicans, with the remainder made up of registered Libertarians, Greens, and Constitution party voters.

NC's Absentee by Mail Ballot Requests Could Hit 100K This Week

By Michael Bitzer

Two weeks ago, I posted an article about the estimated number of absentee by mail (ABM) ballot requests submitted by North Carolina registered voters, based on a July 7th report from the NC State Board of Elections and information from various county boards of elections. At that point, the estimated requests stood at 69,500.

Following that, the State Board began a daily report of the requests, found here, that not only gives the status of requests by counties, but also various demographic factors, such as voter race, gender, ethnicity, and age ranges. In the past week since the report has been posted and updated daily, the numbers of ABM requests have grown considerably, and this piece will see where things stand now as we are under a hundred days away from the general election, and more importantly, only forty days from when the ABM ballots will sent out to voters.

As of Monday, July 27, the estimated total requests for NC absentee by mail ballots stands at 92,370, up from the initial estimated number that was posted of 69,500, an increase of thirty-three percent over the past two weeks. Based on projections that I'll discuss shortly, we could easily see North Carolina reach an estimated 100,000 requests within the next week, most likely by Monday, August 3rd.

Recent NC Polls show discrepancies: what explains it?

By David McLennan, Guest Contributor

Two recent polls about the US Senate race in North Carolina raised the eyebrows of many political observers in the state and around the nation. The June East Carolina University Poll had Democratic challenger Cal Cunningham tied with Republican incumbent Thom Tillis (41-41). Public Policy Polling (PPP) released their June poll results that had Cunningham up eight points over Tillis (47-39).

This race, expected to be very competitive by national forecasting organizations such as the Cook Political Report, appears to be a toss-up, according to the ECU Poll, but less so in the PPP Poll.

The discrepancy in these results is not unique to these two polling organizations. Results about North Carolinians preference for president in April showed equally dissimilar results from the Civitas Poll and my own Meredith Poll.

These differing results do not mean there is anything wrong with the methodologies used by the polling organizations. It reflects a more fundamental fact about public opinion that early polls—those conducted months before Election Day—are going to have results that differ, often wildly. The reality is that the surveys administered closer to Election Day are going to be more consistent with each other and show more stability in public opinion.

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.

ICYMI: ONSP in the News

It's been a pretty busy week for ONSP Blog, with several pieces turning into media interviews and news coverage:

Dr. Whitney Ross Manzo's analysis about how police actions change perceptions of law enforcement was highlighted on Spectrum News 1's Capital Tonight with Tim Boyum with an interview segment with Dr. Manzo.

On Tim's podcast, Tying It Together, Drs. Susan Roberts, Chris Cooper, and Michael Bitzer were interviewed about the role of the South in the 2020 election, based on our first vlog.

And Kevin Frey of Spectrum News 1 discussed Dr. Bitzer's piece about the estimates of North Carolinians having requested absentee by mail ballots. Bitzer was also interviewed by Laura Leslie on WRAL on the piece.

Dr. Chris Cooper's analysis of the recent Republican run-off (second) primary election in the North Carolina 11th Congressional District was cited in a recent research memo regarding the state's 2020 election preparations.

Thanks for reading and watching the analysis done on ONSP.

How Police Actions Change Perceptions of Law Enforcement

by Whitney Manzo

With recent news stories surrounding public Confederate statutes across the South, North Carolina has been home to several controversial decisions, and removals, of these memorials. All around the country these statues have come under fire as part of the Black Lives Matter movement, with many being toppled by protestors. While more Americans favor letting Confederate statues stand than removing them, it is not a majority, and the percentage of supporters has decreased quite a bit in the last few years- a fairly quick shift in public opinion. Still, many North Carolinians oppose the removal of Confederate statues, which has led to a few tense standoffs between Black Lives Matter protestors and counter-protestors.

For example, there has been a storm of controversy around the outside of the Alamance County courthouse, where a Confederate monument depicts a generic Confederate soldier on top of a column. The base of the statue is adorned with carved Confederate flags, and lists of Confederate soldiers from the county and other Confederate relics are stored inside the monument. A group of community leaders, including educators, business people, and politicians, have called for the monument to be removed from its pedestal and placed in a museum, but Alamance County Commissioners claim they don't have the power to do so under North Carolina law.