This weekend marked a milestone in North Carolina politics: For the first time, more people in the state are registered to vote as Republicans than Democrats.
The change, which has been years in the making, was once unthinkable in a state where Democrats dominated for more than a century.
New data released Saturday by the N.C. Board of Elections shows Republicans with 2.315 million registered voters and Democrats with 2.133 million. The GOP now has a 2,077-vote advantage.
Unaffiliated voters remain the largest group of voters, with 2.977 million.
“It is absolutely fair to say this is the first time in North Carolina history we will have more Republicans than Democrats registered,” said Western Carolina University political science professor Chris Cooper.
He noted that the Democrats’ decline isn’t necessarily the GOP’s gain. Most new voters are unaffiliated, not declaring themselves with either party, and the share of Republican registration has stayed at around 30 percent.
But the steep decline in registrations is worrisome for Democrats, he said.
“This is a story of Republican stability and Democratic demise. And the way that’s playing out is that people at the end of their lifespan, when they die, tend to be Democrats. And the people who are entering the voting pool tend to be unaffiliated.”
New energy, but not many registrants
The flip comes at a time when the Democratic Party appears reinvigorated as it works to oppose President Donald Trump.
Democrats won elections in Virginia, Georgia and New Jersey in October, and flipped seats in North Carolina’s municipal races last fall.
And millions have marched in No Kings protests in Charlotte and across the nation.
But there’s a conundrum amid all this momentum: The Democratic Party still doesn’t have many people willing to become Democrats. That’s true nationwide and in North Carolina.
At the start of President Obama’s second term in 2012, there were 820,000 more Democrats than Republicans in North Carolina.
In last year’s presidential election, there were only 106,000 more Democrats. Even after President Trump’s tumultuous 2025 — marked by the president’s low approval ratings — the Democratic registration lead continued to dwindle.
Stanly County, 45 minutes east of Charlotte, is a prime example of what’s happened.
In 2012, there were 13,700 registered Democrats in Stanly. Now there are just 7,915.
The county is mostly rural. Its biggest city, Albemarle, is best known for being the home of country singer Kellie Pickler. There is a sign honoring her at Courthouse Square downtown.
A block away is the new headquarters for the Stanly County Democratic Party. It’s in a storefront that used to hold music lessons. In December, a small Christmas tree was displayed in the window, decorated with blue ornaments.
Erin Soto became the party chair in the spring.
“Everything here has been donated,” she said about the new office. “We’ve been blessed in that regard. Right on the desk, we’ve got our voter registration. This is a poster board that people can click on the QR code to donate.”
When she became party chair in May, the county party was on life support. It had only $700 in the bank and just three of 22 precincts organized.
Now the party has $37,000 and half of the precincts manned. People also appreciate the party being more visible, with the downtown office.
“Even my beautician said, ‘I didn’t know there was a Democratic Party.’ I get that a lot,” Soto said.
Despite that energy, there are still 47 fewer registered Democrats in Stanly today than since the summer. There are 352 more Republicans and 428 more unaffiliated voters.
Soto said many of those unaffiliated voters vote Democratic and that some people are afraid to register with the party in such a conservative county. She said she took one woman to the Board of Elections to change her registration to Democratic.
“When I took her down (to the board of elections), and she filled the paperwork,” Soto said. “And right before she turned it in, she almost couldn’t do it. She said she thought about her parents, who are lifelong Republicans.”
Soto said she told her that “this is not your parents’ Republican Party anymore.”
National Democrat says it’s an image problem
Lakshya Jain, a Democrat, is the CEO of Split Ticket, which analyzes voting data. He said the Democratic Party’s registration woes are not a rural thing, or a North Carolina thing. It’s happening everywhere, including in other swing states like Pennsylvania and Arizona.
“I don’t even know if I should say slow bleed or slow annihilation because Democrats had all these really robust leads in all these states,” he said. “And then in the Biden years you saw scores of Democrats — ancestral Democrats, moderate Democrats, conservative Democrats — just abandon the party.”
He’s surprised Democrats would have registered more people in 2025 as Trump’s approval ratings dropped.
“And the fact that they haven’t, honestly, is a tiny bit concerning. This is the time when parties are supposed to rebound,” Jain said.
But he says the registration problem isn’t due to tactics or a lack of resources. It’s about brand identity, and he said too many people see the party as too left-wing.
“If half of the people on your own side think that you are too liberal, you can bet your ass that the people on the middle, and the people on the other side of the spectrum definitely think that,” Jain said.
Implications for 2026?
It’s important to note that the changing registration numbers are, in a way, just a reflection of how North Carolinians have long voted.
The state began registering voters by party in the 1960s, and Democrats had a near monopoly on party membership. But the GOP has won every presidential race in the state since 1980 except once — when Barack Obama narrowly won the state in 2008. The GOP has also won every U.S. Senate race since 2008.
In other words, many people who were registered as Democrats have long voted for Republicans.
Democrats have also been able to replenish their shrinking party membership with unaffiliated voters.
In this year’s U.S. Senate race, Democratic candidate Roy Cooper is using the registration decline as a fundraising tool. He has social media ads noting that Democrats have recently lost 150,000 voters and that a donation to his campaign can turn that around.
