Year of the unaffiliated voters

Both parties are closing in on patterns that resemble their 2022 and 2018 early voting turnout, but unaffiliated voters are consistently 5 points or more higher day-over-day.

With votes coming in at a steady pace, most of the armchair analysts on social media are watching the Democratic versus Republican share of the ballots being cast. Democrats started with a massive lead, making up more than 46% of the votes cast while Republicans initially made up less than 20%. Over the course of the week, though, Republicans’ share of the votes has increased while Democrats’ share has decreased. As it stands right now, Democrats make up 42% and Republicans 23%.

So where is the balance? With unaffiliated voters, of course. This election they are coming into their own. They make up 34% of the voters so far, about 8% more than in 2018 and 5% more than in 2022. These voters will break Democratic this year, probably in a big way.

Democratic registration has been falling for decades. Today, there are almost 360,000 fewer Democrats than there were in 2018 and 160,000 fewer than there were in 2022. Republicans have about 200,000 more voters than in 2018 and 110,000 more than in 2022.

Unaffiliated voters have increased by more than 530,000 in the past two years. They make up 40% of registered voters now. Almost half of voters under 40 years old are registered unaffiliated.

The surge of unaffiliated voters are people who are motivated. And the people who are motivated this cycle are voting against Republicans. We will see if they slow down in the coming week.

Early in the early voting period, I suggested Democrats had a 31-point lead. Now, I suspect it’s down to about 24 points. In 2018, Republicans won Election Day by about 13 points. In 2022, they won it by about 21 points.

Republicans need to close the gap considerably before Election Day. They are more likely to win by their 2018 margin than their 2022 margin, and it might be less than that. Unaffiliated voters are the only ones consistently outpacing both their 2018 and 2022 turnout on a day-to-day basis.

In 2022, Cheri Beasley led the early vote by 193,000 votes, or 54% of the early vote. Ted Budd won the Election Day vote by 315,000. In 2018, with the Republican vote split, Democrat Anita Earls garnered 54% of the early vote and just under 50% of the total vote. Republicans won the Election Day vote by about 13 points and may have edged out Earls except for the two Republicans on the ballot.

Democrats need to go into Election Day with a larger margin than they had in 2022 or 2018 to get the wins they need. Right now, they look poised to do that. Republican turnout is a bit lighter than it was in either 2018 or 2022 while Democrats are mostly keeping pace. Unaffiliated voters are the big unknown and the only ones voting consistently, and considerably, above their percentages in the last two midterms. They will determine the depth of the Democratic victory in North Carolina.