A Review of "The Long Southern Strategy"

Occasionally I have the opportunity to guest host WFAE's Charlotte Talks and interview some really fascinating people about a politics. Most recently, I interviewed Rob Christensen, former political reporter and columnist for the Raleigh News & Observer on his new book about North Carolina's Scott Family dynasty and the state's era of progressive politics, as well as former North Carolina attorney general, secretary of state, and 1984 Democratic gubernatorial candidate Rufus Edminsten on his new book.

This week I'm interviewing Drs. Angie Maxwell and Todd Shields of the University of Arkansas on their new book, "The Long Southern Strategy: How Chasing White Voters in the South Changed American Politics."

It is a deeply rich and extensive study of how the American South transformed from a deep blue, Solid Democratic region to now a Solid Republican South (albeit some states deeper in their red hues than others).

Deep Dive into the Demographic Dynamics of NC's Districts: Volume 2--NC's State Senate

In the previous post, I looked at the dynamics of voter registration within North Carolina's 13 congressional districts. This post begins a two-part review and analysis of the state's General Assembly districts, first with the 50 districts in the state senate. With much of the attention being paid to NC's congressional districts in this "blue-moon" election cycle, the state legislative races will command state-wide attention, with the Democrats attempting to at least break the Republican's super-majority numbers in both chambers.

The map of the most recently approved upper chamber districts:

Some deeper dives into NC's registered Millennial Voters

As a follow-up to the previous post, I thought about the division among race and gender when it comes to North Carolina's Millennial registered voters, and broke out the 2 million registered voters under the age of 35 as of the December 30, 2017 voter registration file, courtesy of the North Carolina Board of Elections.

First, the overall trend lines for registered Millennial and the first members of Generation Z since 1999 and their party registration:

An Noticeable Trend in Comparing 2012 to 2016 Cumulative NC Absentee Voting

In doing some comparative cumulative analysis of absentee voting (based on ballots sent dates) in both 2012 and 2016 so far, an interesting trend has developed that may give some insight as to how North Carolina absentee voters, by both mail-in and in-person, may be trending.

First, I looked at the overall cumulative total numbers for 2016 for both mail-in and absentee ballots, and the 2016 overall totals are slightly behind 2012's same day numbers (by about 3 percent).

However, there are some distinct differences when one looks at party registration for total absentee ballots being sent out:

In comparing the same day cumulative totals (as of the 18th day out from Election Day), registered Democrats were behind their 2012 numbers by 6 percent and registered Republicans were behind by 15 percent, but registered unaffiliated voters were 27 percent ahead of their same day 2012 numbers.

With two days of early voting into the mix with mail-in ballots, I decided to look at the trends based on race within the cumulative absentee ballot numbers, knowing that white voters overwhelmingly dominate mail-in ballots while black voters over-perform in absentee in-person ballots.

What I found (in the above graph) was that compared to four years, black voters were underperforming in the first two days of early voting, while 'all other races' were above their 2012 percentage lines. White voters, however, are slightly above their 2012 percentage, with the beginning of in-person voting.

So, I decided to look at white voters by party registration to see what trends might be present. Even though absentee ballots from white voters is running slightly ahead of the same-day 2012 numbers (2 percent), the significant gap between 2012 Republican absentee ballots and this year's, combined with the over-performance by both Democrats and unaffiliated voters in comparison to their numbers from four years ago, is striking.

White Democrats are 10 percent ahead of their 2012 same-day numbers, while white unaffiliated voters are 30 percent ahead of their same-day numbers from four years ago; conversely, white Republicans are 15 percent behind their 2012 same-day numbers.

Since Republicans tend to be an exclusively white party in North Carolina in terms of registration (94 percent white in the 10-22-16 voter registration pool), the gap between 2012's performance by white Republicans and their current turnout indicates that something is not motivating them to turnout, at least through absentee voting. I decided to look at one more potential factor that may be causing this.

Much has been made about the urban/rural divide in North Carolina. In comparing the percentages of the absentee ballots that came from urban, suburban, and rural counties, I isolated just white voters in different types of counties and their party registration to find the following (again, using the final overall 2012 data and the 10-22-16 absentee data so far):

• In 2012, urban Democrats were 17 percent of the overall absentee voting
• So far in 2016, urban Democrats are 18 percent of absentee voting
• In 2012, urban unaffiliated voters were 13 percent of the overall absentee voting
• So far in 2016, urban unaffiliated voters are 15 percent of absentee voting
• In 2012, urban Republicans were 23 percent of the overall absentee voting
• So far in 2016, urban Republicans are 19 percent of the absentee voting

While more urban Democrats and urban unaffiliated voters are showing up this year so far than in comparison to the overall 2012 performance, it appears that urban Republicans are not casting absentee ballots, at this point in 2016's absentee voting, at the same potential rate as their 2012 overall percentage.

This could speak to the issue of the 'top-of-the-ticket' lack of enthusiasm, the potential differences between the Democrats' ground game in the state compared to the Republicans' ground operations, or it could also speak to the Republican presidential candidate's unfavorability and lack of motivation by some white Republicans, particularly those GOP voters who may be more moderate in urban areas, to 'get out and vote.'

Of course, all of this could be also attributed to the impact of Hurricane Matthew in the eastern part of the state, as well as the changes made by Republican county boards of elections in reductions in polling places as compared to four years ago.

Nevertheless, with two weeks out before November 8, these may be the warning signs for Republicans of serious issues that, unless corrected, could be critical to the final tallies on the evening of November 8th. Subtle shifts in turnout may have a significant impact on the final counts.