At this point in the election, the only thing that matters for campaigns is putting people in the polls. While strategists in some races may be arguing over last minute ads buys, none of that matters anymore. The die is cast. Few voters are still undecided and those who are won’t be swayed by television or digital ads. Their main decision is whether or not to vote at all. Everybody on competitive campaigns should be field operatives now. 

The Los Angeles Times reported that North Carolina had 7,000 political TV ads last Wednesday alone. I suspect that was the low point for the final two weeks of the election. People here will be served up between 7,000 and 10,000 ads per day until next Tuesday. Nothing is getting through anymore. It’s all just noise. 

On the ground, though, the sound is feet heading to the polls. We are seeing astronomical turnout. It seems to be slowing down slightly after last week’s rush but we can expect to see a record number of people vote in this election, despite a global pandemic. 

According to Dr. Michael Bitzer’s tally, 3,631,545 people have voted already. That’s over half of the registered voters in the state. If the trends follow 2016, another 800,000 people will vote before early voting ends. We could conceivably see 4.5 million people vote before election day. To put that into perspective, the total vote in 2016 was about 4.8 million. About 1.6 million of those folks voted on election day. If the same number shows up next Tuesday, voting will top 6 million people. I doubt we’ll see numbers that large, though. 

The pandemic scared a lot of people and we’re seeing a record number of mail-in ballots that dwarfs any previous year. Those ballots skew Democratic because Donald Trump convinced his supporters that a) mail-in ballots were less likely to be counted and b) the pandemic is a hoax so standing in line to vote is not a threat. So far, 55% of all Democrats have already voted, including 15% who voted on election day in 2016. 

Republicans are also voting at record numbers in early vote. Traditionally, Republicans have voted heavier on election day. However, they are increasingly eating into their 2016 election day numbers. Almost one in five of current Republican early voters voted on election day in 2016. Whether those voters are replaced by new Republican voters on November 3 could determine the outcome of the election. 

The unaffiliated voters provide the wild card in the election. They have dramatically increased their numbers from 2016. They are making up 29% of the early voters so far, more than the 26% they made up in 2016. According the News & Observer, they are younger and whiter than the electorate as a whole and many, if not most, have moved to the state recently. Those stats favor Democrats. Thirty percent of the unaffiliated voters did not vote in 2016. 

Despite the bombardment of political advertising, the effect of the ad wars is over in North Carolina. No point numbers are going to change the direction of the electorate. No killer ad is going sway a bunch of voters. North Carolinians are saturated. The only thing that matters now is who votes. Democrats have an advantage over Republicans but not quite as large as they did in 2016–and they lost back then. However, the unaffiliated voters who are voting in droves fit a Democratic profile and will likely determine the outcome of the election. Republicans will still need a huge election day advantage to win the state. They’ve gotten it in the past. We’ll see if they do it again.