By John Hood

Four years ago, we entered the homestretch of the 2020 election cycle with 7.1 million North Carolinians registered to vote, of which 36 percent were Democrats and 30 percent Republicans. The remainder were unaffiliated (33 percent) or in alternative parties.

This year, there are 7.6 million North Carolinians registered to vote as of early September. The Democratic share has dropped to 32 percent. The Republican share is still about 30 percent. Unaffiliated voters comprise nearly 38 percent. Here’s another way to think about the changes: over the past four years, Democratic registrants fell by approximately 146,000 while the GOP added 137,000 and the unaffiliated category shot up by nearly half a million voters.

While it would be difficult to spin these trends as helpful to Democratic candidates in North Carolina, their practical significance is open to debate. Many of those unaffiliated voters lean left ideologically but aren’t as comfortable as previous generations were with embracing the Democratic label (remember that one’s voter registration is public information).

Moreover, some of those new unaffiliated registrants — be they newcomers to North Carolina or longtime residents — are “soft” partisans at best in their voting behavior. They usually vote for one party’s candidates or the other but are open to persuasion (or to skipping certain races on the ballot).

Still, I do think it’s instructive to examine the registration figures in greater detail. They can, at least, flag places where the two major parties are strengthening or struggling.

For example, there were counties where new Republican registrations roughly kept pace with the unaffiliated population or even exceeded it over the past four years. Some were sparsely populated rural areas such as Alleghany, Cherokee, Clay, Gates and Surry. Others were burgeoning retirement communities such as Brunswick and Carteret.

There were also six counties where there are more Democrats today than in 2020: Brunswick, Cabarrus, Chatham, Johnston, Union and Wake. All are fast-growing places, however, so even though the number of Democrats went up, the party lost ground to the GOP in all but Wake County.

Of course, Wake is a pretty big “but.” At 844,070 registered voters, it now represents 11 percent of North Carolina’s total. It’s actually one of the few places where the Republican ranks shrank (by about 7,200 voters). In the next-largest batch of registered voters, Mecklenburg’s 812,623, both Democratic and Republican registrations went down.

Although some national pundits parachuting into North Carolina from time to time fail to appreciate this, our two most-populous counties make up less than a quarter of the electorate. Yes, these and our other urban counties tend to go Democratic. But most North Carolinians live in suburban counties, smaller cities and rural communities. That’s why Republicans still compete effectively for most statewide offices and control the state legislature (redistricting really only affects their prospects for supermajorities).

After examining some of the same data, my John Locke Foundation colleague Andy Jackson recently pointed out that so far this year, new Democratic and Republican registrations are running at about half the pace they did during the same period in 2020, while unaffiliated voters are registering at higher levels. Overall, there were 77,024 new registrants by the first week of September 2020, vs. 60,978 by the first week of September 2024.

Here’s my take on all this: registration trends are no guarantee of electoral outcomes. It is certainly better for your party to be growing instead of shrinking. But unaffiliated North Carolinians already make up a healthy plurality and will only become a larger one over time. 

Most unaffiliated voters remain reliable votes for the Republicans or the Democrats. Given the rough parity of the two partisan bases, however, even a sliver of soft partisans and true swing voters — five to 10 percent of the electorate, depending on the race — can tip the balance.

Resources matter. Enthusiasm and turnout operations matter. Messages matter. Most importantly, candidates matter. It is very likely that a mix of Republicans and Democrats will win competitive districts and statewide offices this year — as usual.

John Hood is a John Locke Foundation board member. His latest books, Mountain Folk and Forest Folk, combine epic fantasy with early American history (FolkloreCycle.com).