Wednesday, October 3, 2012

N.C. early voting? Advantage to Republicans

It's not just the presidential candidates debating tonight. In North Carolina, gubernatorial candidates Pat McCrory and Walter Dalton square off in Durham at 7 p.m. Watch it on public TV stations in your area as well as WCNC and WSOC in Charlotte. It will be rebroadcast an hour later on Time Warner Cable's News 14.

Before you watch, take a gander at the Civitas Institute's information on early voting. In person early voting doesn't start until Oct. 18 so we're talking absentee ballots and military voting. Even so, McCrory, the Republican, has a commanding lead in the polls over Dalton, the Democrat, and the early voting trends seem to bolster that lead. More than 10,000 Republicans had voted as of Oct. 1 - that's nearly double the 5,600 Dems who've voted. A little over 3,600 unaffiliated people had voted. Nearly 20,000 total have voted.

Whites way outnumbered blacks in voting early - 17,412 vs. 1,533. Females edged men at 11,028 vs. 8,550. And Mecklenburg County leads in early voting with 2,402. Guilford County is next with 1,371. Forsyth and Wake were next.

Civitas compared those results to 34 days before the election in 2008, and it shows a big increase in total voting: It was  a little over 12,000 four years ago. Republicans still outnumbered Dems but not by as much - 7,059 to 3,417. Females still outnumbered males but by a much slimmer margin: 6,974 to 5,202. And whites still swamped blacks - 10,996 to 864.

Early balloting so far has already topped President Barack Obama's vote margin win North Carolina in 2008, with Republicans predominating. Pundits say the GOP learned a lesson from four years ago when registered Democrats reportedly made up nearly half the early votes cast (that's including in-person, one-stop early voting) and Republicans made up just a third.

In person early voting ends Nov. 3, and it will be interesting to see what the final result is this time.

- Posted by Fannie Flono

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Advantage?
Really?
Such silly liberal bias.....trying to make it sound like the Republicans can do something democrats can't in this election.

Why not just say the Republicans care more about their country and future than Democrats. Folks don't need a photo ID to vote by mail.

Karl said...

Fannie,

Why is there any 'advantage' for the GOP when either Democrats or Republicans can participate in early voting?

Perhaps this is an early referendum on those who are fed up with the failed policies and lack of economic focus for the past 3.5 years?

Skippy said...

Every credible indicator is that the GOP base is much more enthused this year versus 2008 model. Of course none of the polls reflect that huge advantage to the GOP and why would they? In fact many of the so called credible polls are using record turn outs for the Dems in this years election and after last nights biggest debate blow our of all time, I am sure the Dems will me than ever fired up to vote for the con man in the office.

And of course the pesky 2010 elections never happened just ask Fannie.