Elections & Voting
Keep up with our latest demographic insights
As this article from 538 details, the 2020 election in North Carolina was held under newly redrawn maps. Districts for the U.S. House, state Senate, and state House seats were redrawn after a three-judge panel in state court ruled last year that the previous maps were unconstitutional and violated “citizens’ right to fair elections.” The newly redrawn maps still had to have equal populations using data from the 2010 Census, but North Carolina’s population has…
For the past few months, I’ve wondered: is there a relationship between COVID-19 and absentee ballot requests? Specifically, I hypothesized that absentee ballot requests may increase in communities where COVID-19 rates were higher, perhaps due to increased news coverage and concerns about the virus. Yesterday, I finally dug into the data for North Carolina counties. I looked at the percent of registered voters who had requested an absentee ballot and the cumulative COVID-19 cases and…
October 27th was the last day for North Carolina voters to request an absentee ballot by mail for the November 3, 2020 election. Early voting ends in North Carolina on Saturday, October 31st. With six days remaining before Election Day, half of North Carolina’s 7.3 million registered voters have already voted: 2.8 million or 38% have voted using one-stop early voting 819,362 or 11% have voted using absentee by mail In this post, we break…
A previous version of this post contained incorrect data for select groups due to a coding error that duplicated a small number of records. We have updated this post to correct for this error and also reflect the most recent data as of October 28, 2020. 5pm ET on October 27th was the deadline for North Carolina voters to request an absentee ballot by mail for the November 3, 2020 election. As of October 28th,…
It’s been almost four years since the 2016 general election and in that time, there have been demographic shifts in North Carolina. With just two months before the 2020 election cycle, we’ve broken down the changes by partisan composition and who makes up our newly registered voting population. First, we should note: our state’s population continues to grow North Carolina has experienced steady population gains since 2016, with net gains masking a larger turnover in…
As of July 25th, 2020, North Carolina had 7 million registered voters. Of these, 2.3 million or 33% were registered unaffiliated. This post examines the characteristics of NC’s unaffiliated voters. Age Younger voters are the most likely to register as unaffiliated. Forty-three percent of voters ages 18-34 are registered unaffiliated compared to 35% of voters ages 35-54, 26% of voters ages 55-74, and 21% of voters 75 and older. As a result, younger adults, especially…
This is part of our series looking at NC's registered voters. Other stories include an overview of NC's voters and an in-depth look at NC's Democratic voters. As of July 25th, 2020, North Carolina had 7 million registered voters. Of these, 2.1 million or 30% were registered as a Republican. Age Younger voters are the least likely to register as Republican, reflecting their higher affinity for registering unaffiliated. Just 23% of voters ages 18-34 are…
This is part of our series looking at NC's registered voters. Other stories include an overview of NC's voters and an in-depth look at NC's Republican voters. As of July 25th, 2020, North Carolina had 7 million registered voters. Of these, 2.5 million or 36% were registered as a Democrat. Age Older voters are the most likely to register as a Democrat, partly reflecting the legacy of the “Solid South.” Just over 43% of voters…
This is the first in a three-part series on North Carolina's voters. Today, we take a look at North Carolina's 7 million registered voters. In the coming days, we will take a look at North Carolina's registered Republicans and Democrats, respectively. As of July 25th, 2020, North Carolina had about 7.8 million voting-eligible adults and 7 million registered voters. Their partisan affiliation was roughly split between three groups: Democrat, unaffiliated, and Republican, with a slight…
It’s been almost three years since the 2016 general election and in that time, there have been demographic shifts in North Carolina. With just under a year before the 2020 election cycle, we’ve broken down the changes by partisan composition and who makes up our newly registered voting population. First, we should note: our state’s population continues to grow North Carolina has experienced steady population gains since 2016, with net gains masking a larger turnover…
Your support is critical to our mission of measuring, understanding, and predicting population change and its impact. Donate to Carolina Demography today.