Where the NC Voter Pool Stands Halfway Through 2019

With the first half of 2019 in the books, and as we get closer to the 2020 election year, here's an overview of the 6.6 million registered voters in the Old North State, as of June 29, 2019.

Currently, the party registration breaks down as 37 percent registered Democrat, 32 percent registered unaffiliated, 30 percent registered Republican, and 1 percent registered the other parties (Libertarian, Green, and Constitution).

When breaking down different factors based on party registration, there continues some intriguing patterns to the voter pool.

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).

NC Makes Constitutional Law History Again

In my previous post, I contemplated whether North Carolina's partisan gerrymandering case, known as "Rucho v. Common Cause" and combined with a Maryland case, would make constitutional law history. And indeed, it did.

It made history because the court, until a new majority assumes power, said "we aren't getting involved in these partisan gerrymandering cases because they are too political." Which further made the court a political institution, in the eyes of some, and an odd savior of partisan gerrymandering to others.

In an interview the day of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision not to involve federal courts in partisan gerrymandering because of the "political question" doctrine regarding justiciability, I mentioned the fact that we have a dual judicial system, with both a federal court system and a state court system. And that the state case, challenging partisan gerrymandering based on state constitutional law, was working its way through the state system and could end up at the North Carolina Supreme Court. Immediately after my comments, former state senator Bob Rucho (the "Rucho" of the case name) said the following:

NC could make constitutional law history yet again

With the pending decision by the US Supreme Court regarding North Carolina's redistricting & partisan gerrymandering case, the Old North State once again could enter the annuals of history when it comes to redistricting efforts: first, the state dominated the jurisprudence regarding race, redistricting, and racial gerrymandering; now, the state, along with a case out of Maryland, could be one of the lead decisions regarding politics, redistricting, and partisan gerrymandering.

In order to get the full impact of the Supreme Court's decision, it is best to get a sense of how this issue came to dominate the political landscape and how we got to awaiting the final opinion.

Following the 2011's redistricting efforts, led by supermajorities of Republicans in the North Carolina General Assembly and not subject to a governor's review or veto (see NC Constitution, Article II, Section 22, Subsection 5), the initial congressional maps were challenged as racial gerrymandering. That legal challenge ended with the US Supreme Court upholding the lower court's judgment that the congressional district maps were unconstitutional, based on racial gerrymandering (Cooper v. Harris, 2017).

Final Numbers in the NC 9th Congressional District's Early Voting Period

While there will be some additional absentee by mail ballots coming in this week, the early ballots in North Carolina's Ninth Congressional District primary is complete. Now, we await the final election numbers to come in on Election Day, this Tuesday, May 14. Below is some final analysis of early accepted ballots, along with some voter history and potential voter turnout considerations.

The overwhelming number of accepted early/"absentee" ballots are from those who cast them in-person, known in North Carolina as "absentee one-stop" ballots:

North Carolina's 9th Congressional District: Early Voting Nears The End

With early voting coming to an end today (on Friday, May 10), the early voting electorate is pretty much set for the North Carolina Ninth Congressional District. All that is left are the ballots to be cast at next Tuesday's Election Day, on May 14.

So far, within the GOP primary, 8,246 ballots have been requested, by both mail-in and in-person, with slightly under 8,000 votes (7,916) accepted as ballots for counting.

In terms of accepted early ballots (from both mail-in and in-person voting), Mecklenburg County continues to dominate the ballot pool, with half of all the early accepted ballots:

NC's 9th Congressional District Early Voters as of May 5, 2019

With early voting in the North Carolina 9th Congressional District well under way, more than 5,600 district voters have requested early ballots (either mail-in or voted in-person through 'one-stop' voting) in the new Republican primary contest. This analysis of early votes is based on data from the NC State Board of Elections for May 5, 2019.

Both registered Republicans and unaffiliated voters are allowed to cast ballots in the 10 candidate field, with registered Republicans outnumbering unaffiliated voters. Nearly 70 percent of the requested ballots so far are from registered GOPers.

North Carolina's Voter Trends: Regionalism in 2018's Election

As another chapter in exploring the Old North State's 2018 mid-term election data, it appears that North Carolina isn't just experiencing a tectonic shift among generational cohorts, but also within the geography of the state.

Like the rest of the nation, North Carolina is experiencing the 'urban-rural' divide in its politics, but with some clarifications as to the division. This analysis looks at the turnout rates in four 'regions' of the Old North State: at urban county voters who live within a central city (Charlotte, Raleigh, etc.), those voters who reside outside the central city but within that same urban county, voters in the surrounding suburban counties to the urban county, and then all rural votes. This page denotes which counties are in each category, based on the U.S. Office of Management and Budget's classification.

North Carolina's Voter Trends: A Shifting Electorate In 2018

Recently, the U.S. Census Bureau released a report about the impact of young voters on the 2018 mid-term elections.

The Census report documented that turnout among 18-29 year olds went from 20 percent in the previous mid-term election (2014) to 36 percent in 2018, "a 79 percent jump," the largest increase among any age group.

In thinking about the Old North State's electorate in the 2018 mid-terms, a similar pattern emerged as well among young voters. But instead of looking at age ranges as the U.S. Census does, I broke the electorates into their respective generational cohorts, and then analyzed several different aspects for who showed up in the 2018 'blue-moon' election in North Carolina.

How Did We Get To This Point With The NC State Board of Elections?

With yesterday's news (I'm afraid to call it a bombshell because North Carolina's political landscape is littered with craters nowadays of exploding news), I took to twitter to try and give an overview sense of how we ended up with the North Carolina State Board of Elections and Ethics Enforcement going out of business at noon on Friday, December 28, with the continuing investigation into the North Carolina Ninth Congressional District election controversy.

So, here's hopefully a recap of that tweet thread for folks looking for a "plain English" version of how we got to this point, with links to various stories that help to support the time line and the controversy over the NC State Board of Elections. 

December, 2016: Political Power Plays Proceed