Was there a "Harris Effect" that Spiked Democratic Party Registration in NC? Evidence After One Week

By Christopher Cooper

As you certainly know, President Joe Biden announced last Sunday that he would withdraw from the 2024 Presidential election and endorse Vice-President Kamala Harris to be the Democratic nominee. By and large, Democrats responded to this news with something that has become a scarce resource in the Democratic Party--excitement. 

Although this feeling of hope is promising for Democrats, there is no Electoral College for excitement and votes don't count more for people who are super-pumped to cast them. For excitement to matter, it must translate to votes.

It's too soon to count votes, so our best early signs of whether Democrats can capitalize on this excitement are fundraising and party registration. There's no question that the Biden-Harris switch has inspired a fundraising bonanza--including perhaps the largest one day haul in U.S. history. 

But what about party registrations? Some evidence suggests that the Biden-Harris switch promoted massive increases in Democratic voter registration--one report indicates that it was the largest two day number of voter registrations this electoral cycle. One week in, is the "Harris effect" evident in North Carolina voter registrations? Using publicly available data, I tried to find out.

Looking for the Harris Effect in Overall Numbers

The easiest way to answer this question is to simply compare the number of Democrats, Republicans, and Unaffiliated voters in the week after the Biden-Harris Switch to the previous week. 

There were 443 more registered Democrats in North Carolina on July 27, 2024 than on July 20, 2024. That's positive for Democrats, right? Well...sort of. Unaffiliateds (3,499) and Republicans (2,063) are up even more, so...maybe not? Further, as Andy Jackson from the John Locke Foundation illustrates, there is always a small bump in all party registrations in the summer before a presidential election, so perhaps this increase would have happened with or without the switch from Biden to Harris.

While all of the caveats above stand, the fact that the Democrats are up at all (even a relatively modest 443 registered voters) is notable. From February 3, 2024 to July 20, the number of Democratic registered voters in North Carolina declined every week but one. A rise of 443, therefore, represents a small, but potentially a significant increase--and potentially a sign that Harris-related excitement translated to something tangible.

Looking For the Harris Effect in New Registrants

The numbers above, while important, can only tell us so much. Democratic registrants might have been be up more than usual last week because they added a lot of new registered voters, or because they subtracted fewer registered voters than usual. The better way to understand whether there is a Harris effect, therefore, is to look just at the new registrants, rather than the overall number of registered voters by party. 

Here, we again see evidence of a modest Harris effect in Democratic voter registration. From July 20-July 26, 2,351 people registered as Democrats in North Carolina--a 44 percent increase as compared to the previous week. New Republican and Unaffiliated voters, on the other hand, were both down from the previous week (-23% and -14% respectively).

Who Are the Harris Effect New Registrants?

We now know that the Democrats had a better than average week in new party registrations last week following the Biden-Harris switch. This provides some evidence of a modest Harris effect. But, who are these new registrants? And how do they compare to new Democratic registrants the previous week?

The table below summarizes race, ethnicity, gender and age data for new registrants the week immediately before and after Harris switch. Pre-Harris and post-Harris new registrants look remarkably similar in terms of race and ethnicity, although the post-Harris switchers were slightly more likely to identify as female and were about four years younger on average than the new registrants the week prior.

New Democratic Party Registrants in North Carolina Before & After Biden-Harris Switch
	July 13-19	July 20-26
White	45%	43%
Black	34%	34%
Asian	3%	3%
Other	7%	6%
Unidentified	10%	14%
Hispanic/Latino	7%	5%
Female	55%	57%
Avg. Age	41	37

Notes: Table from Chris Cooper using NCSBE data

Remember the Forest, not Just the Trees

It appears that the switch from Biden to Harris did inspire some people to register with the Democratic Party in North Carolina--at least the first week after the announcement. In terms of total registrants, Republican and Unaffiliated registrations were fairly constant, whereas the Democrats saw a small increase--a notable change because in an average week, Democrats lose, not gain in terms of overall registration. 

If we look at new registrants, we see a similar evidence of a Harris effect on party registrations--Democrats gained more new registrants than the previous week, while the number of Republican and Unaffiliated new registrants dropped as compared to the previous week. 

While this is good news for Democrats, we should not lose track of the larger story line: Democrats are losing in terms of voter registration, and a Harris effect of this size, even if it is sustainable, would not be enough to arrest the larger trends in party registration. As Andy Jackson of the John Locke Foundation indicates "the available evidence indicates that Republicans will do better than Democrats during both the 2024 registration rise and the 2025 registration fall, leading them to overtake Democrats sometimes in 2025 or 2026."

So--a Harris effect? Yes. One big enough to win an election? We'll see.

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Addendum (8-5-2024)

Now we have two weeks of data after the Biden-Harris switch and it looks like the initial registration enthusiasm has slowed a bit, but it's still evident. There were more Democratic new registrants than Republican new registrants for the second week in a row. 

Sidenote: you may notice that there are more new registrants during the week of July 20 on this graph than the one before. This is normal--these data are updated once a week and it often takes a few days (or longer) for the applications to be processed and uploaded. 

Addendum (8-11-2024)

We now have three weeks of data after the Biden-Harris switch and it looks like the initial registration enthusiasm has slowed a bit, but it's still evident. There were more Democratic new registrants than Republican new registrants for the third week in a row. 

Addendum 3 (8-18-2024)

Almost a month in and the song remains the same--the Harris effect continues, but the gap is closing. 

And, here's another update (on Sept.2). And, you guessed it--pretty much the same story.

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Christopher Cooper is Madison Distinguished Professor of Political Science and Public Affairs at Western Carolina University. You can follow him on most sites @chriscooperwcu.