NC Republicans Closing Early Voting Gap? 5 Straight Days of Gains in Vote Percentage

RALEIGH – While there is no way to really know who partisan voter are pulling the lever for in the ballot box, data on how many Rs, Ds, and Us are casting ballots via mail or early voting can offer clues. The absentee vote this year will be historic, on account of Pandemic Panic, but the early vote numbers have plenty of recent history to be compared too.

It’s probably common knowledge among the politically interested that Democrats tend to dominate the early vote. Overall, too, general registration numbers favor Democrats. So, seeing that 40-some percent of voters are Democrat and only 20-some percent are Republicans (the rest unaffiliated) is not necessarily noteworthy.

But how the voter streams ebb and flow over the early voting period can mean all the difference. Democrats may start out strong, and then dry up more or faster than usual.

Off to a roaring start that could lead to breaking records for turn out, early voting in North Carolina has understandably ebbed a bit. Within that current, though, is interesting swirl; it’s data showing D votes, as a percentage of the total vote, falling, while the R percentage continues to rise.

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Where that settles over the next two weeks will be the ultimate tell, but this same D-drop-off trend was in play when North Carolina went Red in 2012, and 2016.

As noted by Professor Larry Schweikart:

1) From “Freeper” Ravi on NC/GA:

Black share of the total vote has dropped from 34.4% about 2 weeks ago to 30.5% as of this morning (1.7 million ballots cast for all races). The overall turnout is now about 40% of total turnout in 2016 – incredible.

— Larry Schweikart (@LarrySchweikart) October 20, 2020

2) Of the 1.7 million ballots cast, only 4.9% come from those aged 18 to 24.

[ME: Since I expect da Yuts to be DOWN 30% on election day, they need to be UP 30% in early voting. Unless I’m nuts, this means they are really DOWN 35% off 2016 right now!]

— Larry Schweikart (@LarrySchweikart) October 20, 2020

3) NC Ds share of total vote decreased from 46.4% to 45% today.

NC Rs share of total vote increased from 24.9% to 26.3% today.

Final advantage in 2012 was 47.6% D & 31.5% R (Romney won). Final advantage in 2016 was 41.7% D and 31.9% R (Trump won).

— Larry Schweikart (@LarrySchweikart) October 20, 2020

4) And this from “Freeper” bort:
“NC numbers are starting to look better. Rs have closed the % gap for 5 straight days, knocking 2 points off of gap yesterday. Dems only beat Rs in raw early vote yesterday by 18K votes & black vote fell off a little.

— Larry Schweikart (@LarrySchweikart) October 20, 2020

4) continued from “Freeper” bort:
I expect Rs to reach parity in raw votes tomorrow or the next day.”

5) Now when you understand from “Freeper” byecomey that the D early voters are older/whiter & that they are “legacy” Ds who vote in significant #s R.

— Larry Schweikart (@LarrySchweikart) October 20, 2020

With the chance of extraordinary voter turn out, those final percentages could be extraordinary as well. For what it’s worth, in the last two cycles, Republicans approaching 32 percent of the vote saw the state go Red for president, much of congress, and governor (once).

Will Republicans turn out in growing force from here on out? Can Democrats sustain enough early vote momentum to keep the election in play?

You can certainly exercise your influence over the outcome of the first question, if you haven’t already.