This is the last week of North Carolina election data before early voting starts on Thursday, October 17.
Voter Registration Changes
This is the first week of the election season in which either party’s registration increase came close to that of the unaffiliated. There was a net increase of 5,430 Democratic, 11,329 Republican, and 12,916 unaffiliated registrations this week.
Voter registrations have increased by 169,137 since the pre-election registration surge began in late July. That is far below the 218,528 net registration increase at a similar point in 2020.
Republicans are a little over half of their 2020 registrations while Democrats are a little under half of their 2020 registrations.
Mail Ballot Returns through October 6
As seen at Vote Tracker, county election boards have accepted 51,962 ballots through October 13. The graphic below shows a different number because misdated returns (including one in Duplin County reported as received on October 7, 2025) were excluded to make it look more correct.
37.5% of the ballots returned so far are from Democrats, compared to the Republican’s 26.8% and 35.1% from unaffiliated voters. At a similar point in 2020, it was Democrats 51.2%, Republicans 17.7% and unaffiliated 30.8%. The difference probably reflects Democrats returning to in-person voting after the COVID-19 scare caused many Democrats to vote by mail in 2020.
Absentee Ballot Requests
Here is today’s snapshot of absentee ballot requests with comparisons to similar points in 2016 and 2020, provided by the North Carolina State Board of Elections:
The difference in total ballot requests between the three elections makes it difficult to compare from one election to the next, so here is a comparison by percentage:
The Republican portion increased from 25.0% of all absentee ballots last week to 25.3% this week, while the Democratic portion dipped from 36.0% to 35.4%. The unaffiliated portion increased from 38.2% to 38.4%.
Comparing North Carolina Presidential Polling to 2016 and 2020
To get some context for all the polls we see for the presidential race in North Carolina, here is a comparison of the Real Clear Politics North Carolina presidential polling averages for October 14, 2024, 2020, and 2016.
Trump is slightly ahead of Harris as of the time the latest polling average was available (October 11). He was behind on October 14 in both 2016 and 2020. He won in 2016 49.8-46.2% and in 2020 49.9-48.6%.
Comparing North Carolina Gubernatorial Polling to 2020
According to the average of the last five polls at 538, Josh Stein leads Mark Robinson 52.0-38.6% in the governor’s race.* At a similar point in 2020, Roy Cooper led Dan Forest 51.4-42.8%. Cooper won that race 51.5-47.0%.
*When the same poll listed results for registered voters and likely voters, the likely voter poll was used.
