Trump Calls Mail Voting Unsafe. Actual Data & Opinion Shows North Carolinians Think Otherwise.

By Michael Bitzer

Just when you think it will be a quiet Monday morning before the start of classes in forty-eight hours, the President of the United States sends out a statement that nobody was expecting, attacking a particular vote method that North Carolina voters have utilized as one of three methods to casting a ballot.

Here's the full statement by the president attacking mail-in ballots, along with many other aspects related to election administration. 

If you ask anyone who studies election administration and voting processes, you will get some very pointed pieces of information to the above statement:

Summer Heat Meets Campaign Heat in the Old North State

By Michael Bitzer, Susan Roberts, and Christopher Cooper

To say that the world of NC politics has been abuzz with news in the past 24 hours is like saying "it's summer...so it's hot in the Old North State." An understatement, to say the least. 

On July 23rd, press reports started with Axios, later confirmed by other outlets, that former N.C. governor Roy Cooper has decided to run for the U.S. Senate, a major 'get' for Democrats in what is likely one of the most competitive races for the 2026 mid-term.

The next morning had Politico reporting Lara Trump was out, but Michael Whatley, RNC chair, was in, with Trump's blessing. 

This sets up what everyone had been expecting: a potential clearing of primary field on both sides (at least expected) with two titans running for a coveted open-seat election. Here's our initial "3 Big Thoughts" as we digest and think about this epic contest:

The Politics of Masking

By Todd Collins

Editor’s note: with the visibility regarding House Bill 237, the 'mask bill' that passed the North Carolina State Senate this week and sent to the State House, ONSP asked Dr. Todd Collins (a licensed attorney and legal/political scholar with extensive experience in the courtroom and the classroom) to offer his analysis on the bill. His views do not represent the opinions of his home academic institution.

Not too long ago the only political discussions about face coverings surrounded the “mask index.”  If you aren’t familiar, this is a way to predict the presidential election based on which candidate’s Halloween mask sells the most before an election.  

As the legend goes, this method has correctly predicted every election outcome since Ronald Reagan.  George W. Bush masks were the bigger sellers in 2000 and 2004, Obama masks outsold his Republican rivals in 2008 and 2012, and we saw more Donald Trump faces than Hillary Clinton’s on October 31, 2016.

Of course, national mask sells are really hard to quantify, so I wouldn’t make a parlay bet on the 2024 election based on statistics from Spencer’s Gifts.  But one thing that is clear is that masks have indeed become a recent “Hot Topic” (and yes, that’s two old-school mall store references in one paragraph if you’re keeping score).

An Analysis of North Carolina's New Abortion Bill

By Rebecca J. Kreitzer

Editor’s note: with the high visibility regarding Senate Bill 20, which the North Carolina General Assembly introduced and passed last week, ONSP asked an expert on abortion policy, Dr. Rebecca Kreitzer, to offer her analysis on the bill and its potential impacts as a special contribution to the blog. Her views do not represent the opinions of her home academic institution.

Recently, the North Carolina General Assembly passed Senate Bill 20, a process that saw the bill's introduction to final adoption completed in less than two days. Ostensibly entitled "Care for Women, Children and Families Act," the first half of the bill restricts access to abortion in numerous ways before tacking on an assortment of policy changes to "improve infant and maternal health." However, the law's provisions make little impact on improving healthcare for women or children, and likewise it shouldn't be referred to as a "12 week abortion ban" because the restrictions on abortion begin earlier than 12 weeks and go far beyond gestational bans. 

In total, about 48 hours transpired between the content of the bill becoming public and the bill passing the Senate and getting sent to Governor Cooper –  notably shorter than the mandatory waiting period the law requires for patients seeking abortion to reflect on their decision. Governor Cooper will veto the bill. However, with State Representative Tricia Cotham becoming a Republican only months after campaigning on a platform of expanding access to abortion, the Republicans now have a slim veto-proof supermajority in both chambers to override the governor’s objections and make the bill law. Republican legislators in the General Assembly have maximized their chances at overriding a veto, including changing chamber rules to allow veto override votes to be taken without any prior notice. 

Perceptions of Polarization in North Carolina

By Whitney Ross Manzo and David McLennan

Recently, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) gained attention for a statement in which she argued for a national divorce between red and blue states. She argued that from “the sick and disgusting woke culture issues shoved down our throats to the Democrat’s traitorous America Last policies, we are done.” Although Greene was widely criticized for her remarks, even by members of the Republican Party, her comments reflected the belief that America’s political polarization is based on wildly divergent policy positions. Her comments also suggest that polarization has increased to the point that the country may be at a breaking point. 

Although there is evidence that policy differences exist, particularly on cultural war issues, and may contribute to political polarization, there is also a body of research that suggests that political polarization is based on social identity differences. As opposed to differences in ideology, affective polarization is the idea that we identify with people more similar in identity to us (political affiliation, race/ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, etc.) and feel dislike and even disgust for those who are different from us. 

Using data from the Meredith Poll from 2017-2023, we set out to examine whether we find evidence of polarization among North Carolinians. Do North Carolinians perceive there to be high levels of polarization? And, are North Carolinians polarized, either by issue or by identity?

Growing & Distinct: The Unaffiliated Voter as Unmoored Voter

The four contributors to this blog--Drs. Michael Bitzer, Christopher Cooper, Whitney Ross Manzo, and Susan Roberts--recently had their research on North Carolina's Unaffiliated voters published in the journal Social Science Quarterly.

Using data from North Carolina's voter registration and history files along with public opinion data from the Meredith College Poll, this academic study points to the idea that Unaffiliated registrants are not simply shadow partisans but, on average, are distinct from the two major parties in terms of demographics, political behavior, and political attitudes. 

The study concludes that voters who eschew party labels are best understood as unmoored voters--often hovering close to their ideological docks but with no institutional constraint to keep them from drifting as the political tides shift.

You can find a link to the full study (in PDF) here at the Social Science Quarterly website. 

A Purple State, with a Red Tint or a Blue Hue? What Is North Carolina, Politically?

By Michael Bitzer

Since the dust has seemingly settled on 2022, and already we're turning attention to 2024 (yes, I know, I know), the hot takes of what the 2022 mid-term elections are flying fast and furious before we shift our gaze to the next election cycle.

Needless to say, there's a LOT to digest and understand about what this historic election means in the context of what we know about mid-term elections in our politics. My fellow contributors and I have been bouncing ideas back and forth between each other, but the one thing (or more appropriately, the one 'model') that we political scientists tend to rely on for explaining mid-term election is the connection between a president's approval rating and the ultimate number of seats in Congress gained, or more likely, lost. 

In a couple of public presentations made over the election cycle, here's a chart of the president's approval ratings (on the horizontal, or X axis) compared to the number of congressional seats gained or lost (on the vertical, or Y axis):

Mail Voting in NC: Update 5

By Michael Bitzer

As my colleague and ONSP contributor Chris Cooper noted last week, the song of absentee by mail ballots and voting has pretty much stuck to the same tune: impressive numbers surpassing 2018's mid-term election (currently three-times ahead), but (as expected) far below the pandemic-induced mail-in performance of 2020's presidential election.

We've come to the 'semi-end' of focusing just on absentee by mail voting, with North Carolina starting absentee onestop, or more commonly referred as "early in-person" voting, tomorrow (Thursday, Oct. 20) and running through Saturday, November 5th (ending that day at 3 PM). The absentee by mail ballots will still be requested and (possibly) returned and accepted, ending with the 5 PM postmark deadline on November 8. Chris will have both of these numbers following the first week of reporting next Wednesday, but if Georgia first day of early in-person voting is any indication, we will likely see very healthy numbers in that vote method here in the Old North State. 

As a comparison, here are the four major vote methods (both number of ballots and percentages) used in North Carolina's general elections since 2012: absentee by mail; absentee one-stop (in-person, including absentee curbside); Election Day (including curbside); and provisional & transfer ballots. 

Post-Primary 2022 Reflections

With some sleep (and probably more caffeine than sleep), here are some reflections and thoughts following the 2022 mid-term primary. Each of us will provide our own thoughts, and if we repeat each other, well, that may mean it is something others should be paying attention to. 

As a note: when the final voter data comes out after canvassing, we'll have a better set of empirical analyses to run, but here's what each of us are thinking following May 17's contest and preparations for the campaigns to November's general election. 

By Susan Roberts:

As we know, partisanship is perhaps the single most important predictor in voting. That’s one reason primary elections are intriguing. These races don’t provide the voter with a clear partisan cue, and voters must rely on other factors to make their choices. Perhaps one of the best and most recent reflections on these was a piece by Elaine Karmack of the Brookings Institution on lessons from the March 2022 Texas primaries. Karmack argues primaries are “the most consequential elections in American politics,” adding they have long been regarded as “the ugly stepchild of American politics; ignored by journalists and snubbed by political scientists.” We aren’t going to ignore them here in the Old North State.

With NC's early voting done, It's Election Time/Day for NC's Primary

By Michael Bitzer and Chris Cooper

With this past weekend's close of early, in-person voting for North Carolina's May 17 primary, we thought we'd revisit some of our thinking from last week and add in a few more data points (thanks to the great work by the N.C. State Board of Elections and the various counties with their public files) and observations (and questions) about what we might see come Tuesday's election.

Early Voting Sets a Mid-Term Primary Record

First, an overview of where things ended up with North Carolinians casting early votes, and boy did they ever. 

Does Party Competitiveness in NC's Primaries Drive Unaffiliated Voters One Way or the Other?

By Michael Bitzer

With the holidays looming, Cheri Beasley's campaign for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate got an early Christmas gift, coming in the form of fellow competitor Jeff Jackson's suspension of his campaign and endorsement yesterday. 

And with the primary election now two months later, thanks to the state gerrymandering lawsuit, Beasley's campaign gets to firm up her general campaign operations, including building a warchest for what will likely be one of the most expensive U.S. Senate races again in the nation. Republicans, however, will have to wait until May before what appears to be a bitter and brutal primary fight will be resolved. 

And while most of the focus will be on the candidates and their strategies towards May and ultimately November, there's one other important group of individuals to consider: the voters. As my colleagues and I have been looking at the rise of North Carolina's unaffiliated registered voter, we have the data collected to see who has shown up in past primaries, especially by voter party registration or, in the case of the unaffiliated voter, lack thereof. 

For the 2008 to 2020 primary elections, I collected each of the presidential and mid-term voter history data, which provides both the voter's party registration and the party primary selected. As a reminder, only partisan registered voters are allowed to participate in their primary, but unaffiliated registered voters can select either the Democratic or Republican primary ballot. 

What Might Be The Electoral Dynamics of the 2022 Legislative Districts?

By Michael Bitzer

As I write this blog post on Thursday, Dec. 9, to say that this week has been yet another wild roller-coaster ride in the state's politics is probably stating the rather obvious. With the back and forth and back of candidate filing (or not) for the March 2022 primary election, the end result appears to be that the North Carolina Supreme Court has ordered the March primary to be moved to May, with all candidate filings suspended (not just for legislative races, but all contests). 

In that same order, the state's highest court directed the three-judge trial panel to hold its proceedings and issue their ruling by January 11, in about a month's time, a fairly quick turnaround considering the looming holidays. 

In this trial, the major question posed by those challenging the new congressional and state legislative district maps will center on the claim of partisan gerrymandering, as noted in the plaintiff's complaint:

How Far Can the Kudzu of Trumpism Cover North Carolina?

By Michael Bitzer

For those not from the South, kudzu is a vine that spreads itself far and wide, seemingly minute-by-minute, thanks to the region's heat and humidity. And yet it contains 'mythical' dynamics of a plant destined to eat the entire region. 

Most of the 'lore' of the noxious vine is just that--a myth--even though most Southerners and those visiting the region have seen the telephone poles, barns, and trees consumed by the invasive green monster. 

Yet beyond the actual plant, kudzu can take on metaphorical dimensions, within the right conditions, for an invasive and aggressive being that can devour whatever is in its path at lightening speed. It's not just the plant that one can see overtaking farmland, but what I'm seeing is a political version that has strong roots in the Old North State and is advancing quickly.

And like the plant, Trumpism's spread will likely not be contained until it covers all aspects of the Republican Party.

In news that has startled North Carolina politics, current U.S. Representative Madison Cawthorn announced that he was moving from his current home of the 11th (soon to become the 14th) congressional district to what will now be the new 13th congressional district. 

Redistricting and American Democracy Conference

Duke University will be hosting a conference September 28 & 29 on "Redistricting and American Democracy." The conference will bring together scholars, practitioners, and advocates virtually to take stock of the current legal and political landscape, preview the upcoming redistricting process in North Carolina and elsewhere, and discuss the path forward for redistricting reforms. 

Two of ONSP contributions, Drs. Chris Cooper and Michael Bitzer, will be participating in the conference. Registration for the conference can be made here, with a general overview of the two-day program here and the schedule here.

How Might Politics Impact NC's County COVID Vaccination Percentages?

By Michael Bitzer

As with many things nowadays, partisanship and polarization has infected many aspects of our society; not just our political lives, but things that 'normally' one might consider apolitical. With the intensity of what we see in our polarized environment, pretty much any issue, especially those seen as a public policy, becomes framed in partisan dimensions. 

Recently, political scientist Seth Masket at the University of Denver noted that the relationship between how a state voted in the 2020 presidential election and its percentage of adults who have received at least one COVID vaccine is "remarkably strong," at a level of 0.85 correlation which is something social scientists "almost never see this high a correlation between variables." This relationship was also found by another political scientist, Tom Pepinsky, regarding county-level data.

In fact, Masket found that vaccination rates are a "better predictor" of state voting patterns than what we normally think of as predictive (read, in statistical language, independent) variables such as race, education, or other demographic factors. 

Beyond just analyzing the fifty states, Masket analyzed Colorado's counties to evaluate the role of vaccination and voting patterns in 2020, and found another remarkable correlation/relationship between the two (at 0.835, where a 1.0 would mean the two variables are identical in their relationship and that one variable perfectly explains the other variable).

For those of us who study state politics and are interested in a particular state, this type of analysis is fairly simple: take the 2020 county-level election results (say, the 100 counties of North Carolina and their vote for Trump) and the vaccination rates by counties and see how the two numbers relate to each other. 

"Late" Absentee by Mail Voters: Who Are They?

By Michael Bitzer

With the passage in the state senate of Bill 326, the move to require absentee by mail ballots by received by Election Day, instead of three days afterwards, has cleared half a legislative hurdle. This legislation was brought about due to the controversy over the extension in 2020's election of receiving absentee by mail ballots from three days after the election to nine days. 

But how big an issue are mail-in ballots arriving after Election Day in North Carolina? Luckily, the N.C. State Board of Elections' public data allows us to see how many mail-in ballots were received and accepted after election day and what kind of partisan (and other) dynamics, if any, are at work. 

What Might SB 326 Mean in Practice?

By Christopher Cooper

The "Election Integrity Act," SB 326 was filed in the NC Senate on March 18, 2021 by Senators Daniel, Newton, and Hise. The bill has a number of provisions, including (1) "prohibit[ing] the state board of elections and county boards of elections from accepting private monetary donations for certain purposes," (2) "appropriat[ing] funds to establish a program to identity and assist voters needing photo identification",  (3) "amend[ing] the date by which a voter must request an absentee ballot, and (4) amending the date by which a "mail-in absentee ballot must be received."

While the first two provisions are important and worthy of study, the third and fourth policy changes are ready-made for the type of empirical analysis that we try to provide on this blog. In this brief entry, I report results from a simple simulation of whose votes would not have been counted and who's would have been rejected in the past two General Elections if SB 326 had been the law.

A First Look at 2020's Election Turnout: GOP & Suburban Voters Dominated

By Michael Bitzer

Thursday, January 7 at 12:52 PM: I had written this blog post yesterday morning, on January 6, thinking that I would get it done before the joint Congressional session for the Electoral Count began, watch the proceedings unfold, and return to this piece this morning for one last glance and editing. Here's what I had as an original opening:

It's been an interesting start to the new year, or what some might describe (with everything going on) as '2020 version 2.1.'

Little did I realize what would transpire during the Electoral Count would fundamentally shake me to my core--as both a political scientist and historian and as an American citizen. But 24 hours later, with the physical illness feeling gone and in its place, a smoldering sense of professional and personal rage, I returned back to this blog piece to see if I had the stomach to hit "Publish" in the midst of everything else going on. 

And I paused. Staring at the blinking cursor. 

But then I realized: after everything that transpired, Congress went on its business last night. They reconvened after the insurrection had been removed from the Capitol, even amidst the destruction, disheveled desks and lecterns, and likely lingering tear gas. They proceeded to do their job, their constitutional duty and the responsibility they hold as elected officials under their oath of office. 

And so should I, although nowhere near the importance that they had. 

So, I posit the above as it may be a bit 'jarring' to the reader to then dive into my analysis of voter turnout rates and electoral composition. But as such, even with the continued constitutional crisis playing out as I type this sentence (and I realize that some may feel I am a bit hyperbolic in my word choices--trust me when I say, I am not), we must proceed on. 

Therefore, taking the above original opening with a grain of salt following the past 24 hours, here's the analysis.

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But for those of us who are data geeks, the end of 2020 finally brought some welcomed news. North Carolina's voter history data file is now updated with 5.5 million records from the 2020 general election, giving us the definitive insight into who showed up last November in the record breaking election. 

For this post, I'll be looking at the turnout rates for various groups, based on the December 5, 2020 voter registration data file (allowing some counties to finalize voter registrations, but isolating those few voters who registered after early voting was completed). Out of the 7.4 million registered voters, 5.5 million cast a ballot, making North Carolina history with a 75 percent turnout rate in a presidential year in the past fifty years.

Lay of the Political Landscape: NC's 13 Congressional Districts

This is another piece in a series regarding the 'state of the 2020 election' when it comes to the dynamics of North Carolina as we approach the November 3rd General Election. Prior to Election Day, we'll have companion pieces for the NC state house, gubernatorial, and presidential contests in the Old North State. 

In this post, each of us take several of NC's thirteen congressional districts and assess their characteristics for the general election. In most conventional analyses of the U.S. House races, one should not be surprised by a switch from 10 Republican-3 Democratic delegation to an 8-5 Republican-Democratic delegation (thanks to recent redrawing of the district lines and the centering in urban areas of two districts), though two may have the potential for some real interest when the polls close on November 3rd. 

We should note: while we present a lot of demographic and district-based characteristics, we are not attempt a predictive analysis of how these contests will come out; only the fundamentals found within each congressional district as an overview for helping to understand what may happen come November 3. 

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.