Final look at early voting in North Carolina

Democrats got some good news nationally as we barrel toward Election Day.

Canvassing for Democrats with my daughter.

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Early voting has ended in North Carolina. I’ll give a brief analysis but first want to give a general update on items that should give Democrats hope.

First, Harris campaign advisor David Plouffe tweeted Friday that the campaign’s internal data shows late deciders are breaking for Harris by double digits. I think that makes sense. A few weeks ago, a friend who’s spent decades working in politics postulated that undecided voters who have known Trump for eight years and still aren’t sold on him aren’t likely to vote for him. The fiasco at Madison Square Garden and his erratic behavior going down the stretch may have sealed the deal for some of those voters.

For the most part, I have successfully ignored the polls down the stretch. It was easier than I thought, though I have paid some attention to the debate over polling that’s played out on twitter and elsewhere. I think the election has been too close and getting realistic samples too difficult to make them reliable. I don’t even look at the averages.

That said, one poll came out yesterday that made everybody following politics take notice. Ann Selzer is a legendary pollster from Iowa. She knows her state and stays in her lane. In 2016, she got national attention because her final presidential poll picked up trends that showed Trump winning by margins nobody expected. She proved to be right, as she usually is.

Yesterday, Selzer released a poll showing Harris leading in Iowa by three points, 47-44. Republicans immediately screamed, calling the poll an outlier, though nobody trashed the pollster. More astute observers noted that even if the toplines are off, the underlying data should make Trump very worried. Older women are backing Harris by more than two-to-one, 63-28. And independent voters are breaking for Harris by a margin of 46-39 and independent women support her by 23 points.

The poll suggests that other pollsters may be missing a shift among older conservative women, especially in the Midwest. Women may be supporting Harris by larger margins than other polls show. In North Carolina, according to exit polls, Biden won women by seven points while Trump won men by eleven. If Harris wins women by the same margin Trump wins men, she’ll win the state since women have about a ten point advantage in the electorate.

Finally, Trump is going into the final days of the election still trying to win with his base. He’s made little attempt to win moderate voters. Instead, he’s kept to bombastic rhetoric that appeals to the people who show up at his rallies. Trump’s voters turned out in sky high numbers in 2020 and he doesn’t have many ways to expand the electorate except among a tiny slice of predominantly white voters who sat out the election four years ago. They are likely non-college educated, low information voters who he is now trying to scare into the polls. His other goal is to suppress votes from low-information Black and brown voters who are more conservative on social issues. That’s a narrow strategy to win.

All in all, I think Harris is in a pretty good position. I would rather be her than him. Still, the election is far too close to know what will happen with Election Day turnout.

And that gets us to the end of early voting here in North Carolina. We don’t really have any great comparisons for the electorate that has voted so far. Overall, there are almost 400,000 more votes at this point in the election than there were four years ago. Unaffiliated voters make up the largest share, with 1,492,000 voters. Republicans trail them by about 14,000 votes and Democrats trail Republicans by about 40,000. Mail-in ballots will continue to come in for the next two days, dominated by Democrats and unaffiliated voters.

Republicans have their first early vote program ever in the state and they should be satisfied with the results. They increased their early vote total by 110,000 over 2020. That’s solid.

Democrats, for their part, are down about 14,000 from their 2020 early vote total, but back then, they were voting by mail in large numbers due to the pandemic. The comparison is a bit concerning, but it’s not apples-to-apples, either.

About 17,000 more Black voters showed up for in-person early voting than four years ago. In total, 791,000 African Americans voted early. Democrats need about 300,000 Black voters to show up on Election Day. A little more than half of that number are likely voters and another 190,000 or so are sporadic voters. About 325,000 would be first time voters.

The big question is about unaffiliated voters. About 250,000 more unaffiliated voters voted early this year than four years ago. About a third of them are 40 years old or younger. They skew slightly more female than male by about 52-47. Eighteen percent of the unaffiliated voters are first time voters and almost two-thirds of them are under 40 years old.

It’s hard to discern too much from the early vote totals in North Carolina other than to bet the election is going to be close once again. Election Day turnout and how unaffiliated voters break will determine the election. Democrats need to have a better showing on Tuesday than they have had in past elections, but that’s doable in the post-pandemic world. Republicans need to make sure they hold onto their turnout advantage from 2020 and hope they aren’t losing women or Haley voters. It’s another nail-biter in the Old North State.