by Christopher Cooper
Normally, the weekly voter registration updates on the North Carolina State Board of Elections are met with a collective shrug from all but the most dedicated, data oriented, and dorky observers of the state’s politics.1
There have really only been three notable exceptions to that rule: September 2017 when Unaffiliated crossed Republican to become the second largest group of registered voters in the state, March 2022 when Unaffiliated became the largest number of registered voters in the state and yesterday when, for the first time in the state’s history, registered Republicans outnumbered registered Democrats in North Carolina.
In October I wrote a piece for The Assembly about this shift—what it means and why it matters. I encourage you to read it in the context of what just happened.2 Some primary things to keep in mind are:
