When Early Voting began, answering the question of "Where are the Democratic voters in North Carolina?" was easy: in the counties with the highest Democratic registration. But now that Early Voting is over, answering that question is a little trickier, b/c it depends on who has already voted. Luckily the NC Board of Elections makes that data available to us.
Below is a table where I attempt to answer this question. For purposes of clarity, I've taken out the obvious examples of the top 3 counties in population--Mecklenburg, Wake, and Guilford. In the first column below, the % is that county's Democratic turnout by the end of Early voting. In the 2nd column, counties are ranked in descending order by their Democratic Registration.
But the 3rd and 4th columns are the important ones. Column 3 is where the counties rank after Early Voting by their numbers of Democrats who've not yet voted. Notice the counties in bold that are moving up the list from Column 2. Finally, Column 4 is a bit of guess work: based on Early Voting, how will these counties rank, after Tuesday, in terms of Democrats who did not vote at all? To arrive at this total I did a rough, across the board estimate: I multiplied the county's early vote turnout % by 150% (FYI, doing this across the state would give Democratic turnout of 80%--optimistic, but very possible). Again, note how the counties in bold continue moving up the list, if things go on as they have so far.
Is this alarming? Yes it is. The reason is that whereas in the 2nd column, registration, the counties in bold account for only 21.3% of Democratic registration (again, not counting Mecklenburg, Guilford, & Wake), in Column 3 they have increased to 24.3% of Democrats who've not yet voted. Not bad, one might say, but it gets worse. If those same turnout trends are extended through Tuesday, those counties in bold (column 4) will then account for (outside of the Big Three), 43.2% of all registered Democrats left at home. I.e., not Durham County, not Orange, or Buncombe, which look set to get their turnout, but these smaller, more rural counties, which probably have fewer volunteers and less GOTV organization. These counties look likely to leave voters at home (just as many of them did in 2004, especially Robeson, which has historically low turnout).
Can this pattern by changed in the next 54 hours???
Early turnout Rank, Dem. Rank, Dems Est.final rank,
registration not yet voted Dems. who stayed home
57% DURHAM CUMBERLAND ROBESON
46% CUMBERLAND FORSYTH CUMBERLAND
47% FORSYTH DURHAM FORSYTH
56% BUNCOMBE ROBESON CABARRUS
51% PITT BUNCOMBE NEW HANOVER
46% NEW HANOVER NEW HANOVER GASTON
58% ORANGE PITT DAVIDSON
23% ROBESON GASTON JOHNSTON
44% GASTON CABARRUS HARNETT
46% ALAMANCE JOHNSTON ALAMANCE
42% JOHNSTON ORANGE ROWAN
37% CABARRUS ALAMANCE COLUMBUS
52% UNION DAVIDSON PITT
52% NASH ROWAN DURHAM
56% WAYNE IREDELL ONSLOW
46% IREDELL UNION HALIFAX
37% DAVIDSON ONSLOW RANDOLPH
42% ROWAN HARNETT CLEVELAND
48% CATAWBA CLEVELAND IREDELL
43% ONSLOW CATAWBA CRAVEN
52% WILSON NASH ROCKINGHAM
44% CLEVELAND COLUMBUS BUNCOMBE
51% EDGECOMBE HALIFAX CATAWBA
51% BRUNSWICK ROCKINGHAM HAYWOOD
45% ROCKINGHAM CRAVEN UNION
38% HARNETT WAYNE SURRY
44% CRAVEN WILSON DUPLIN
41% HALIFAX BRUNSWICK BEAUFORT
37% COLUMBUS RANDOLPH LINCOLN
With 4 days left, my question is: Where are the remaining Democratic votes in North Carolina?At first glance the answer seems obvious that most of them are in 3 areas:
These are, after all, where the most Democrats are registered. So perhaps my question should be phrased a little differently: where are the Democratic votes that will be left at home after Tuesday, November 4? This question may have a very different answer, because the counties I listed above have the advantage, in general, of having great GOTV organizations. What I'm concerned about is other parts of the state that have, historically, much lower turnout.In the list below, counties are listed in order by the 3rd column, which I'll get to in a moment. But in the 1st column you'll see the number of Democrats registered, and the usual suspects are there--Mecklenburg, Wake, etc. These also happen to be counties that are having great early voter turnout this year, too.In the 2nd column, as a rough way of estimating this year's eventual turnout in the county, and trying to account for the great enthusiasm and organization this year, I've taken these same counties 2004 turnout percentage, added 10% to it, and multiplied it by the 1st column. In reality, I expect greater than a 10% increase, but no matter--the idea is to get to a comparative number in the all-important 3rd column: Which counties will leave the most Democrats sitting at home, not voting?That list will start looking quite different: notice in particular how Robeson County starts moving up the list, from 11th in registration to 7th in "not voting." This is due to its low turnout in 2004, and also to itslow turnout, compared to other counties in the 2008 primary and 2008 early voting to date. In fact, because the GOTV is so good in Buncombe, Orange, etc., that Robeson jumps right over them. In fact I anticipate it will jump over Durham and Forsyth, too, and leave the 5th most voters at home--maybe as many as 25,000.To a lesser extent the same is true for Cumberland, a neighboring county: while it has better turnout than Robeson by far, it still tends to trail other metropolitan counties. From 5th in registration it jumps to 4th in"won't vote", and could easily surpass Wake and even Guilford in this number, ending up leaving the 2nd most voters at home.County Reg.Dems Projected Won't Vote VoteMecklenburg 283948 206146 77802Guilford 173146 125704 47442Wake 248978 208146 40832CUMBERLAND 106778 69299 37479Durham 116961 82341 34620Forsyth 100214 72755 27459ROBESON 54031 28528 25503PITT 56102 36410 19692Gaston 49117 30256 18861Buncombe 77532 60552 16980New Hanover 55930 39375 16555Onslow 31683 19168 12515Catawba 32861 20604 12257Orange 55329 43212 12117Johnston 40289 28807 11482Cabarrus 39708 28391 11317Union 37895 27512 10383Rowan 33437 23172 10265EDGECOMBE 29086 18877 10209HALIFAX 27163 17031 10132Iredell 34899 24953 9946Davidson 34333 24548 9785NASH 35672 25898 9774HARNETT 28828 19344 9484 This seems sad in any year, and in this year's election, potentially devastating. 60,000 or more voters left at home in these 2 counties alone, lmost as many as Mecklenburg. Can--and should--anything be done about this at this late date? Could they use more help down there from some of the more volunteer-rich counties? By the end of Saturday, over half of Durham County will have voted. In Robeson? As of a couple days ago, only 12% or so had voted. I don't know the answer about rellocation of volunteers--I just wanted to call attention to it before it's too late.
