North Carolina Republicans are showing signs of strength after three days of early, in-person voting — by casting ballots at essentially the same rate as Democrats.
After Saturday’s voting, 13.9% of registered Republicans have cast ballots in both mail voting and early, in-person voting. That compares with 13.7% of Democrats and 10% of unaffiliated voters.
Historically, Democrats have embraced early voting more than Republicans, many of whom prefer to vote on Election Day.
But former President Donald Trump is urging his supporters to vote early as part of a GOP effort called “Bank Your Vote.” He has even encouraged them to vote by mail, though he’s said without evidence that there was rampant mail voting fraud in the 2020 election.
When more people vote early, it allows political parties to focus on getting infrequent voters to the polls.
It’s unclear if the change in voting patterns forecasts an impact on the final result — or if the statistics reflect the same voters just casting their ballots at different times.
Dallas Woodhouse is the former executive director of the N.C. Republican Party who now works with a group called American Majority. He’s been encouraging Republicans to vote early.
“A whole bunch of folks have worked to change the hearts and minds of conservative voters when it comes to early voting,” he said. “The data shows we have reversed a bad trend for our side.”
Overall in North Carolina, as of Sunday afternoon, some 952,644 people have already voted. That’s 12.3% of all registered voters. That’s down from this same point in 2020 — although that election was skewed because of the pandemic.
Overall, 333,577 Democrats and 321,283 Republicans have cast ballots.
The data on early voting comes from the John Locke Foundation’s Vote Tracker.
- Mecklenburg County is the state’s second-largest county and home to the most registered Democrats and Black voters. Turnout has been below the state average in recent elections, and Democrats are spending millions of dollars to change that. So far, Mecklenburg turnout is again lagging the state, at 10.9%. Wake County, another Democratic stronghold, is at 11.2%.
- In western counties flooded by Hurricane Helene, turnout so far has been mixed. In Buncombe County, home to Asheville, turnout is 10.2%, which is lower than the state average. Much of the city still doesn’t have potable water. But in Watauga County, home to Boone, turnout has been higher than the state, at 13.9%.
- Turnout among white voters so far is at 13.6%. Black voter turnout is 11.5%
