Andy Jackson at the John Locke Foundation tracks weekly changes in North Carolina’s voter registration. Since mid-July, more people have been registering Democrat than they have Republican, though neither party comes close to matching the number registering unaffiliated. Until then, Republicans had kept a consistent edge over Democrats in new registrations for years. The shift might feel good to Democrats, but the real story is the surge in unaffiliated voters.
To me, the change completes the transition from a one-party state to a two-party system that began over fifty years ago. In 1966, the first year that I can find voter registration records, Democrats made up 80% of the registered voters in North Carolina, Republicans 18%, and independent or other about 2%. Democratic registration has been dropping ever since—until now.
Before the Civil Rights Movement, Republicans were heavily concentrated in areas of the state that had remained loyal to the Union during the Civil War. During the period of racial integration, Republicans invited the segregationists into their camp. Conservative commentator Jesse Helms switched his registration from Democrat to Republican and ran on an anti-Civil Rights platform in 1972. A majority of white Democrats voted to send him to Washington and kicked off a long, steady decline in Democratic registration that finally bottomed out this summer.
For years, many voters kept their Democratic registration even though they supported Republicans, particularly at the federal level. Closed primaries kept people from changing their registration, especially in eastern rural counties where votes for local office often became racial affairs. Black Democrats voted for Black candidates while white Democrats voted for white candidates for offices like sheriff and county commissioner.
As primaries opened to unaffiliated voters, many white Democrats changed their registration to unaffiliated before transitioning to Republican. For years, most people registered as unaffiliated, especially in rural counties, were reliable Republican voters.
In the late 1980s and 1990s, the state’s population began to explode. Newcomers from northern states arrived in urban areas and registered as Republicans because they wanted lower taxes and fewer unions. They turned the state’s largest municipalities red.
After a decade or so, those urban Republicans realized they didn’t have much in common with the socially conservative and often evangelical native North Carolinians who dominated the party at the state level. They started supporting more liberal candidates and, like the earlier transition, began registering unaffiliated. Today, rural unaffiliated voters are likely to lean Republican while more urban/suburban ones tend to favor Democrats.
When I started working in politics in the early 1990s, Democrats made up about 60% of the voters, Republicans 30%, and unaffiliated voters, a designation added in the late 1970s, about 10%. Republicans’ quick rise over 20 years would slow to a crawl while Democrats continued to fall precipitously and unaffiliated voters began their ascendancy. For years, we knew anyone registered Republican would support GOP candidates, but we didn’t trust registered Democrats to support the Democratic candidate.
As of today, the Jessiecrats, as we called them, have finally died off. Democrats can largely count on the support of the people who are registered with their party. To win elections, though, they will still need to convince the plurality of voters who rejected both major parties.
While Democrats are benefitting from the anti-incumbent sentiment driven by the Trump administration’s failures, it’s hard to call the advantage a surge. Republicans surpassed Democrats in total registration for the first time in state history this past January, and Democrats have been narrowing that gap since mid-July. To put it in perspective, Jackson’s last report showed Democrats increased their registration by 668 voters and Republicans by 198, while 3,735 registered unaffiliated. Unaffiliated voters make up 40% of the vote, while Democrats and Republicans make up 30% each.
The transition from the old Solid South is complete. Neither party is going to dominate the state again.
