Voter Registration Changes
Voter registrations have increased by 137,470 since the pre-election registration surge began in late July. That is well off the 2020 pace of 176,474. That is mainly due to party registrations being well off the 2020 pace; unaffiliated registration increases continue to exceed those of 2020.
Every county elections board, including those impacted by Hurricane Helene, reported a change in voter registrations. That is a sign that they are at least partially up and running.
Mail Ballot Returns through October 6
As seen at Vote Tracker, county election boards have accepted 21,508 ballots through October 6. The graphic below looks off because Granville and Mecklenburg entered “11-4” instead of “10-4” in the “ballot received” column of the report. Hopefully, they will soon correct those typos.
Looking at just the 11th Congressional District (all of which is in the Hurricane Helene disaster zone), ballot processing plummeted on Friday, September 27, the day the storm hit, but has recovered. That is an encouraging sign. Those were probably ballots that were already in the mail when the storm hit. We will see if there is a secondary dip in ballots processed next week.
Absentee Ballot Requests
Here is a snapshot of requests as of today with comparisons to a similar point 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 24.3% of all absentee ballots last week to 25.0% this week, while the Democratic portion dipped from 36.6% to 36.0%. The unaffiliated portion dipped by a tenth of a percentage point.
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 September 30, 2024, 2020, and 2016.
Trump is slightly ahead of Harris as of the time the latest polling was available (October 3). He was behind on October 7 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, Josh Stein leads Mark Robinson 52.2-38.6% in the governor’s race.* At a similar point in 2020, Roy Cooper led Dan Forest 52.8-40.8%. 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.
