Elections & Voting
Keep up with our latest demographic insights
As of October 1st, North Carolina had 5.6 million active, registered voters. Of these, 1.8 million or 31% were registered as Republican. Age Younger voters are the least likely to register as Republican, reflecting their higher affinity for registering unaffiliated. Just 25% of voters ages 18-34 are registered Republican compared to 32% of 35-54 year-olds, 34% of 55-74 year-olds, and 35% of voters ages 75 and older. As a result, older adults, especially those ages…
As of October 1st, North Carolina had 5.6 million active, registered voters. Of these, 1.6 million or 29% were registered as unaffiliated. Age Younger voters are more likely to register as unaffiliated: 39% of voters ages 18-34 are unaffiliated compared to 30% of 35-54 year-olds, 23% of 55-74 year-olds, and 17% of voters ages 75 and older. The median age of unaffiliated voters is just 43 compared to 52 for voters registered with a party.…
With the majority of North Carolina's population growth since 1990 fueled by net in-migration, the share of residents born in other states and countries has steadily increased. According to the State Board of Elections, over 6.6 million North Carolinians were registered to vote as of September 3rd, 2016. Where were they born? In the 9/3/2016 data, 85% of voters provided information on place of birth. Half of the voters who reported their birthplace were born in North…
Over at Old North State Politics (and on Twitter as @BowTiePolitics), Dr. Michael Bitzer of Catawba College has been diving into the State Board of Elections registered voter data to understand demographic and partisan trends in voter registration. In response to recent posts about generational patterns, someone asked: “What percentage of each generation remains unregistered to vote in North Carolina?” Our estimates indicate that 14% of voting-eligible Millennials (ages 18-34 in 2016) and 8% of…
In March 2015, there were 7.1 million eligible voters (citizens 18+) living in the state according to estimates from the Current Population Survey. Of these, 557,000 or 8% moved to North Carolina between 2010 and 2015. This post provides a brief profile of these new to North Carolina potential voters. Origin The largest share moved from Florida (88K), representing 16% of all eligible voters new to North Carolina since 2010. Another 67,000 or 12% moved…
We originally discussed reapportionment and redistricting in North Carolina in a series of posts in November 2015. To reflect the newly redrawn congressional maps, we updated our 2014 population estimates for congressional districts. This post updates the 2020 population projections for North Carolina’s congressional districts. North Carolina will likely have 14 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives following the post-2020 Census reapportionment process. While we cannot guarantee a 14th seat (no matter how likely),…
Following the decennial Census, political districts, such as U.S. Congressional Districts and state legislative districts, are reapportioned to states and counties on the basis of population and their boundaries are redrawn in a process called redistricting. Broadly speaking, the goal of redistricting is to make each district as close in population size in possible. North Carolina is not the only state with uneven patterns of population growth. Across the United States, population is increasingly concentrated in urban and…
North Carolina’s redrawn congressional districts had equal population in 2010, but North Carolina’s population growth since then has been highly uneven. Two counties, Wake and Mecklenburg, have accounted for nearly half of the state’s growth between 2010 and 2014, while 49 of 100 counties lost population over this time period. How many people are currently living in the newly defined congressional districts? And how much do their current populations deviate from the equal population size that is the goal of every decennial redistricting? The U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey provides annually updated demographic information for congressional districts, but it will take some time for the newly defined boundaries to appear in the ACS data. Using our neighborhood change dataset and the July 1, 2014 county estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau, we estimated the number of people living in each of North Carolina’s congressional districts on July 1, 2014. Detailed information on the data and methodology used to produce these estimates is available here.
Fifty-eight of North Carolina’s state house seats and 18 of North Carolina’s state senate seats will lack representation from both major political parties in this November’s elections. Among North Carolina’s 5.2 million active voters, this means that 2.4 million or 47% will have no choice between major political parties in their state house elections. In the state senate election, 1.8 million or 35% will not be able to choose between Republican and Democrat. Looking at…
Based on the recent candidate filings, we can classify North Carolina’s 120 state house districts into one of three types: Democratic candidate(s) only, Republican candidate(s) only, and at least one candidate from both major political parties. (Although some districts do have Libertarian candidates on the ballot, this analysis focuses only on candidates from the two major political parties.) Sixty-two of the state’s 120 house seats, or 52%, have at least one Republican and one Democrat…
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