1.4 Million New Voters in NC Since 2016, Which Way Will They Lean?

RALEIGH – Per usual, Dr. Michael Bitzer is providing useful and timely analysis of voter trends as we clear five days of early voting and are a mere two weeks from election day.

A recent focus of Old North State Politics, has been the 1.4 million new voters in North Carolina since 2016. That is a big chunk of the 7.2 million registered voters overall, and it’s reflected in early voting numbers.

Around 22 percent of early NC voters so far did not vote in 2016. Which way the new voters will ultimately lean is a vital question that will be answered in due time. But if you want to try to read the tea leaves, Dr. Bitzer can at least provide the leaves.

Many are interested in NC’s new voters since 2016. Some just take the difference between then & now to see the change.

But there’s more to it than just subtraction. @chriscooperwcu & @BowTiePolitics take a look at new NC voters: https://t.co/wJu9jijsiS #ncpol #ncvotes pic.twitter.com/UIhIFOaiKY

— Old North State Politics (@OldNorthStPol) October 19, 2020

Determining what party the influx of voters will benefit isn’t so easy, as a great many of them are new ‘Unaffiliated’ voters. In fact, ‘U’ registrations are the largest since the last general election.

“[…] Since 2017, newly registered voters have avoided party identification when it comes to registration status: over 600,000 of 1.4 million selected Unaffiliated status (43 percent), while nearly 415,000 selected the Democratic Party (30 percent) and 365,000 went with the Republican Party (26 percent). […]”

Learn more about how these voters break down, and what it may mean for North Carolina election trends, here.