About 1.38 million ballots have been accepted in the general election through Monday, down roughly 500,000 votes compared to 2020, but a deep dive into voter turnout data indicates a diverging trend among North Carolinians based on political party.
Democrat turnout is down 43% statewide, with 483,000 voters casting ballots, while Republican participation is down 6.3% compared to 2020, with 464,000 voters having cast their ballots so far,
Jim Blaine, a Republican political consultant, called North Carolina’s GOP turnout “unprecedented” on X and said the party ‘won’ in early voting on Monday for a second time since it began last Thursday.
The trend is even more evident in Congressional District 1, the state’s lone congressional toss-up district where Republican Laurie Buckhout is running head-to-head against Democrat incumbent Rep. Don Davis.
In the highly competitive CD-01, which spans northeastern North Carolina, early voting is down by 30,00 votes (-23%) compared to the 2020 election, yet more Republicans have voted thus far than four years ago. Early voting among Republicans is up 2,540 (+10%) standing at 28,602. Meanwhile, registered Democrats and Unaffiliated voters are down 31,680 (-41%) and 1,014 (4%), respectively. Though significant voter shifts, Democrats still lead Republicans about 46,000 to 29,000.
SEE ALSO: Millions fuel NC-01 clash as Republicans and Democrats fight for US House majority
“While UNAs are also slightly down from 2020, the increase in Republican turnout leaves the vast majority of the decline within the Democratic party,” explained Jim Stirling, a research fellow at the John Locke Foundation. “The decline is not just in early voting; in fact, this decline is nearly equal in both one-stop voting and mail-in voting.”
In total, 98,026 votes have been cast in CD-01, which is down from the 128,085 that were cast at this point in 2020. Both political affiliation and turnout trends align with statewide tendencies seen thus far from the rest of North Carolina. As the Carolina Journal recently reported, a key component is whether the GOP’s rise in early voters will impact traditional turnout on Election Day.
“This is the only toss-up district in North Carolina, and a lot of money has been spent on this election in this more rural northeastern district,” said Stirling. “While Democrats are still ahead in the early voting totals, this district is likely to be a nail-biter on election day.”
Democratic voters nearly doubled their Republican counterparts in CD-01 during early voting in 2020, yet the results were much closer than those registration numbers indicated. Stirling explained that Unaffiliated voters in the district ultimately leaned heavily Republican in 2020 early voting, and, mathematically, some Democrats in the region likely voted Republican as well.
“The Northeastern part of the state that makes up Congressional District 1 has been trending more Republican over the last few years and looking at the data we can see why that is,” he added. “Even if we account for both mail-in ballots and one-stop voting, this heavily implies that Unaffiliateds and potentially some Democrats broke toward Republican congressional candidates in 2020.”
The voter insights come as Democrats have already aired $15 million in ad buys in District 1, the most expensive spending out of any House race in the nation, according to AdImpact. The political ad tracker shows Republicans have spent $8.5 million in comparison.
Over $1B has already aired for House general elections this year!
Aired spending in the most expensive 2024 House general elections:#PA08: 🔵$14.6M🔴$11.3M#NY19: 🔵$14.9M🔴$10.4M#NC01: 🔵$15.3M🔴$8.5M#ME02: 🔵$12.8M🔴$10.7M#MI07: 🔵$12.9M🔴$9.4M#CO08: 🔵$13.4M🔴$7.6M pic.twitter.com/vt5EXn6yJ8
— AdImpact Politics (@AdImpact_Pol) October 18, 2024
The post Early voting in NC’s lone toss-up congressional race may favor GOP first appeared on Carolina Journal.