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.

The Trends Continue to Hold in NC's Absentee Ballots for 2014 General Election

It's been a few days of ballots being mailed out to North Carolinians to vote and then return their ballots, and some of the notable trends that we saw early on are continuing within the 11,597 ballots requested and the 958 ballots returned and accepted so far (as of 9-18-14).

First, the requested ballots and their breakdowns:

Registered Democrats continue to be a plurality of the requests (41.2%), while registered Republicans are 36% and registered unaffiliated voters are 22.4%.  This continues a trend that traditionally runs counter to what we have seen in the past when it comes to mail-in absentee ballots: registered Republicans were traditionally the plurality of requests and returned/accepted, while registered Democrats have been the party which uses in-person absentee balloting.

If we continue to see this trend go into the next two weeks, there may be cause for concern on the GOP side regarding the ever-important "enthusiasm" to voting, while Democrats can look with some relief that indeed, their voters (if these registered Democrats are true Democratic voters) are energized and eager to show up and vote (in this case, mail in their vote).

Women voters are 55% of the requested ballots, and within this group, Democrats are 45%, Republicans 35%, and unaffiliated are 20%.  At 45% of the requested ballots, men are 38% registered Republicans, 36% registered Democratic, and 25% registered unaffiliated.

The average voter age is 63 years old, with whites making up 82.6%, black voters at 12.1%, and all others at 6%.

Among returned ballots that have been accepted:

• registered Democrats are 45.5%
• registered Republicans are 35.8%
• registered Unaffiliated are 18.5%
• white registered voters are 81%
• black registered voters are 14.3%
• female voters are 51.9%
• male voters are 47.8%

Again, if registered Democratic voters can continue to be the plurality of early votes via mail-in requests and accepted ballots, we may see a trend that others need to watch very carefully in this year's competitive election, especially for the U.S. Senate seat in the old North State.