Despite all of the noise and competing narratives, early vote totals don’t look very good for Democrats. There are some unknowns in the numbers, but several indicators fall significantly behind 2018 totals. The problems also don’t look evenly distributed. The election day vote will determine whether they can make up the deficits or fall further behind.
According to John Locke Foundation’s Vote Tracker, in 2018, 250,000 more Democrats had voted than Republicans. This year, Democrats have less than 150,000 vote advantage. Those are the knowns. Most of those votes will go to the respective parties. This year, there are 100,000 more unaffiliated voters than there were in the 2018 early vote totals. Those are the unknowns, but unless all of those new independents vote for Democrats, the party has still lost ground over the 2018 totals.
More concerning, almost 44,000 fewer African Americans have voted this year than voted in 2018. Black voters only make up 18.7% of the early vote this year and made up 21.7% in 2018. African Americans are a core component of the Democratic base. They could conceivably make up the difference on election day. About 25% of those missing Black voters come from Mecklenburg County where about 11,000 fewer African Americans have voted this year than in 2018.
The gender gap that Democrats were hoping to emerge, driven by overturning Roe v. Wade, hasn’t appeared either. The gap has actually shrunk since 2018. Back then, it was 10% and this year it’s only 9%. Only 1,200 or so more women have voted this year than four years ago.
In addition, younger voters are also lagging their 2018 performance. Among voters under 40, there are about 35,000 fewer than there were four years ago. Again, they could show up on election day.
For Democrats to overcome their deficits in North Carolina, they will need a strong election day turnout and hope that swing voters break strongly in their favor. Traditionally, election day voting has been dominated by Republicans. COVID and other factors may have shifted some of those behaviors. We won’t know until the votes are counted. The one caveat I offer is that I’m relying on Vote Tracker. If those numbers are bad, then my analysis is, too. That said, I’ve always found them to be reliable.
Thomas Mills is the founder and publisher of PoliticsNC.com. Before beginning PoliticsNC, Thomas spent twenty years as a political and public affairs consultant. Learn more >
Part of the reason for the “steep climb” was that the leadership of the North Carolina Democratic Party did little to recruit candidates for the 2022 election. A quick count showed that republicans won 14 seats in the state senate and 29 seats in the state house UNOPPOSED. I may be off by 1 or 2 seats as it was indeed a quick count, and I am seeing red at this moment … in more ways than one. As a comparison I checked 2020 to see if this was “normal”. It is most definitely NOT normal. In 2020 democrats fielded candidates in all senate districts and all but 2 house districts. The state party’s prime responsibilities are to (#1) recruit candidates and then (#2) support those candidates. As a result the GOP in NC now is one House vote away from having veto proof majorities for the next 2 years.
I saw something similar happen in 2009-2010. In 2009 the NCDP elected a vapid non-entity as state chair. In 2010 Art Pope bought republicans majorities in the legislature; they gerrymandered the state all to hell, and we have been fighting uphill ever since. Leadership failed then and NCDP leadership failed in 2022. This year in New York, Democratic party leadership is taking heat because 4 federal House seats flipped to republicans. As the saying goes “elections have consequences”, especially elections where one party is asleep at the wheel.
New, energetic leadership is definitely called for. The next set of NCDP chairs will be elected in 2023; they will be the party’s leaders in 2024, and we cannot afford another election with lackadaisical, laissez-faire “leadership”.
Ha ha ha…for the last several elections I’ve voted early. This year I voted on election day itself.
I didn’t even have to show them my ID, hahahaha
Arising this morning, I was prepared for the worst. Both in the state and without. Without seems to have performed much better than within. I had high hopes that Cheri would trounce Ted Budd. In retrospect, my hopes did not factor the gullibility quotient of the electorate.
It is also telling about influence of a certain wannabe Dictator. Perhaps Republicans are starting to realize that crazy isn’t that fantastic after all. That telling the truth is better than lies.
I guess we’ll learn the extent of the lessons learned next Tuesday when the lie machine starts anew coming at us live from Don Don in South Florida. There is no hope for the Provocateur in Chief. The complicity of the party and those around him will be the telling factor.
How any American of reasonable intelligence and decency could reward the complicit Party of Trump is the most-heartbreaking political question of my lifetime. Good grief! Republicans need to be relegated to political purgatory for life after delivering Trump to the people and continuing to suck up to this corrupt and despicalbe human being.