No, Harris isn't pulling out of North Carolina

Also, Democrats have momentum in the final days of early voting.

Credit: Carolina Vote Tracker, a project of the the John Locke Foundation.

Before I start with a brief update on early voting in North Carolina, I want to address a rumor that started earlier this week. A few days ago, Ad Impact, a website that tracks campaign ad spending, noted that the Harris campaign placed $2.7 million in ad buys but then pulled about $2 million of them the next day.

Immediately, people started speculating that Harris was pulling out of North Carolina. That’s not happening. Ad Impact also noted that the Harris campaign still had $2.3 million reserved in North Carolina for the final week of the campaign, a little more than Georgia. In addition, Harris was here on Wednesday and will be back in the state tomorrow. The principal of a presidential campaign is not campaigning in a state the final week of the race unless they believe she’s still competitive.

I don’t know why the campaign moved money around, but there are a lot of reasons. The fact that the campaign is still spending heavily and sending the vice president here shows they believe they are competitive in the state. She’s in it till the end.

The trend of Democratic strength in the final days is continuing. The party surpassed their 2020 in-person totals yesterday. The African American gap that peaked at 77,000 is down to 14,000. In all probability, more African Americans will have voted in-person this year than four years ago. Democrats overall will have increased their numbers substantially.

Republicans have made a big deal about their early turnout numbers but we’re seeing a reversal in momentum. About 1,000 fewer Republicans voted yesterday than they did on the same day in 2020 while 12,000 more Democrats voted yesterday than fours ago. The day before was the same, with 1,000 fewer Republicans voting and almost 15,000 more Democrats voting than the previous presidential cycle.

Younger voters are also making up an increasing number of the voters. While they started a bit slowly, yesterday, they were almost on par with the older voters who dominate the electorate. Those older folks slowed down just a little, indicating that they were more motivated to go vote at the beginning of the early voting period. People under 40 years old make up more than 55% of the first-time voters.

So, going into the final two days of in-person early voting, Democrats have momentum. African Americans are voting in increasingly large numbers and will close their gap by the end of early voting. Overall, Democrats will have more in-person early votes this year than in 2020 and are voting in larger numbers down the stretch than four years ago. As Dr. Bitzer showed yesterday, Republicans have more votes but they are also taking more votes away from their Election Day totals, indicating a change of behavior, not more motivation.

On Election Day, we’re going to see how well the GOTV programs work for both parties. Nobody has a clear advantage right now.