Early voting UP across North Carolina from 2008
GOP operatives have all admitted they learned a painful lesson in 2008. The Democrats beat their pants off in terms of getting-out-the-vote.
According to some relatively real-time data from Civitas, early voting is up significantly this year from this same time period in 2008. Mecklenburg County leads the pack this year (21207 total early votes) , as it did in 2008 (16608 early votes). Poor turnout in Mecklenburg County in 2008 was cited as a key to Pat McCrory’s 2008 loss in the governor’s race.
Wake is second this year (17546) as it was in 2008 (11,713). Guilford jumps to third this year (15202) , up from its sixth place position this time in 2008 (5571).
So far, GOP stronghold Moore County is in 28th place (2448 early votes) , while it was in 25th place at this time in 2008 (2170) .
So far this year, registered Democrats are leading early voting at 47.3 percent, with GOP registrants coming in at 34.8 percent. Unaffiliated voters are at 17.8 percent and Libertarians are at 0.17 percent.
At this same time in 2008, the party breakdown went like this: 52.12 percent Democrat, 32.08 percent Republican, 15.75 percent Unaffiliated, and 0.05 percent Libertarian.
I looked at things a little differently. I was also using the NC Civitas online vote tracking tool, at Carolina Transparency. Your breakdown shows percentages of total ballots handed out so far. Of course, there are more registered Democrats that Republicans in the state, so naturally they’d have more ballots handed out- all things being equal. I also compared each party’s participation to itself using real numbers and noticed a difference in the rates of increased early voting. Compared to 2008 at this point in the election, 44% more Republicans are requesting ballots. 45% more Unaffiliateds are requesting ballots. But only 20% more Democrats are requesting ballots. That’s a huge enthusiasm gap. Sad trombone…