Analysis of NC Registered Voter Pool as of July 30, 2016

With the weekly data file from the NC State Board of Elections, 6,642,234 North Carolinians are active/inactive registered voters, as of July 30, 2016. This represents a 4.7 percent increase over the same point four years ago in the 2012 presidential election.

Some breakdowns of these 6.6 million registered North Carolina voters so far; first, the party break downs of active and inactive voters: 40 percent Democratic, 30 percent Republican, 29 percent unaffiliated, and 1 percent Libertarians. Within the party registration, the percentages of active and inactive voters for North Carolina Registered Voters are:

Next, breaking the state-wide voter registration pool into urban, suburban, and rural counties and then into party registration, one can see the Democratic tendencies of urban counties, while suburban counties are more Republican in nature than the state, as are rural counties.

However, it's important to note that 54 percent of NC registered voters are in urban counties, as defined by the Office of Management & Budget.

The other major shift occurring in North Carolina is a generational shift among the voters.

Baby Boomers (those born between 1945 and 1965) are slightly over a third of the voters, while Millennial voters (those born after 1981) are soon to be 30 percent, and most likely might equal Baby Boomers by November's general election. A key thing to remember among the Silent Generation and Baby Boomers (particularly those who are native North Carolinians): registered Democrats in these generations, especially those in rural counties, are more likely to be reliable Republican voters who simply haven't formally switched their party affiliation.

So far, 59 percent of the new voters who registered since January 1, 2016 are Millennials:

Among North Carolina voters, we tend to see a gender gap developing between women (who make up 53 percent of the pool) and men.

Millennial voters, who only 25 percent are registered with the GOP, see a disparity between men and women, but both are seemingly rejecting the Republican Party as a registration option.

Then, breaking down the party registrations by race and ethnicity indicates that the North Carolina Democratic Party (by voter registration) is officially a majority-minority party, with only 47 percent of registered Democrats being non-Hispanic/Latino white.

Finally, among North Carolina's 147,990 registered Hispanic/Latino voters (2 percent of the total state pool), the party break-downs and by generation show another troubling trend for Republicans:

I'll be tracking September's beginning data file for tracking how these numbers change.

Democrats look to gain after court derails GOP voting law

Was interviewed about the recent 4th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling striking down GOP voting law changes, which will appear to favor Democrats come November if the ruling stands.

Gov. McCrory vs. AG Cooper over who should defend HB2

Was interviewed for a WCNC story on the continuing feud between NC's Governor Pat McCrory and AG Roy Cooper in their election battle for the governorship of the state.

Third-party growth at stake with disliked major party nominees

Was interviewed for a story on Libertarian and third-party opportunities in this election cycle.

Trump & Clinton in North Carolina

Was interviewed for "What Matters in North Carolina?", a podcast from the Freedom Action Network on the general election and campaign set-up in North Carolina between Trump and Clinton.

Breaking Down NC's Voting Pool in Preparation for November's Election

A new blog post at WFAE's The Party Line that analyzes the eligible registered voter pool in North Carolina for demographic and generational cohort trends.

As General Election Battle Begins, Clinton Holds Narrow Lead Over Trump

I was interviewed by Dave Catanese of U.S. News & World Report on the state of the presidential general election race in North Carolina.

Some stats on registered voters in NC's new 12th Congressional District

Based on the May 28, 2016 NC voter registration data file from the NC State Board of Elections, I pulled out the registered voters in the new 12th Congressional District and did some quick analysis and data-crunching of the 522,512 registered voters in the district.

First, the overall district breaks down like this based on party registration:

As to be expected, the district is a strong Democratic one, with registered Republicans barely one out of five voters in the district. Based on the map and previous analysis done of Mecklenburg County, the northern and south-western parts of the district are heavily Republican, but the City of Charlotte's Democratic dominance outweighs those areas.

Next, the racial breakdown of the new 12th:

While white voters are a plurality within the district, black voters make up nearly 40 percent, contributing to the heavy Democratic influence of the new district.

As to gender breakdown of the new 12th:

Finally, a generational cohort analysis of the new district shows the breakdown between millennials (age 18-35), Generation Xers (36-50), Baby Boomers (51-71), and Silent Generation (71 and older).

With over a third of registered voters under the age of 35, the district is dominated by voters under the age of 50.

The next analysis that I conducted was on 'high propensity voters,' those voters registered since 2008 to vote in primary elections and who did vote in 2008, 2012, and the March 2016 primaries. It would seem that the most 'likely' voter to cast a ballot in this special congressional primary would be those voters who showed up for the past three presidential primary elections (mid-term elections could be factored in, but I decided to run presidential against presidential election years).

Of the voters registered prior to the May 2008 primary (260,344), only 39,171 cast ballots in the three primaries, for a total of 15 percent of the eligible voters.

Coming up with the four breakdowns of party registration, race, gender, and generational cohort, we see some interesting aspects.

Not surprising, the vast majority (77 percent) of high propensity voters are registered Democrats. 

Again, with a Democratic-dominated district, black voters are a majority (53 percent) of high propensity voters. 

Women are almost two-thirds of the high propensity voters in the new 12th congressional district. This may play an advantage to either Alma Adams or Tricia Cotham. 

Finally, while those voters under the age of 50 compose a significant majority of the overall registered voters, a majority of high propensity voters in the district are Baby Boomers.

One of the biggest questions raised about Tuesday's primary election is 'what will voter turnout be' in a low-information, low-recognition election such as this? If we assume that the high propensity voters are most likely to cast a ballot in this kind of election, then we may be looking at that 7 percent, with another 5 (conservative estimate) to perhaps 8 percent (optimistic) for a total voter turnout of 12 to 15 percent within the district. The likely voter, however, should be black, female, Baby Boomer, registered Democrat.

We'll see when Tuesday comes. I'll be posting another similar entry on the 13th Congressional District, a GOP-leaning area with 17 Republicans running for the party nomination. Due to time constraints, haven't been able to do the 13th GOP District analysis. 

Control of the NC's State Supreme Court Could Be Decided in a Low Voter Turnout Election

Was interviewed for a story by WCQS by WFAE's Tom Bullock on the upcoming election for the state's supreme court seat.

Democrats Battle for the New 12th Congressional District in North Carolina

Was interviewed for a story for WFAE on the Democratic primary contest for the new 12th Congressional District in North Carolina.