Why was NC an election muddle? Expert observers offer some clarity | Opinion
Reading elections is akin to developing film: The outline of the image emerges quickly, but the full picture takes a while to become clear.
A week after the election, I asked a few expert observers of North Carolina politics about what they’re seeing now that details of the results are filling in.
“To me, the biggest surprises were the underperformance and overperformance of different areas of the state,” said David McLennan, a political scientist at Meredith College who directs the Meredith Poll. “The northwestern counties’ voter turnout was higher than the state average and over performed for Donald Trump. Conversely, the Coastal Plain counties had turnout below the state average and underperformed for Kamala Harris.”
Stronger turnout in areas that make up the Democratic base would likely have produced a different result, McLennan said.
“A more robust turnout in the Coastal Plains, southern North Carolina and Mecklenburg County might have saved Kamala Harris and produced several more Council of State victories for Democrats,” he said.
Michael Bitzer, a political scientist at Catawba College, posted an analysis of the election result on the Old North State Politics blog. He also focused on the variations in turnout.
The drop in Democratic votes compared to 2020 was most pronounced from the southeastern counties bordering South Carolina up to the northeastern counties bordering Virginia. That drop, Bitzer said, “is the tale of the tale of the Democratic vote cratering in the state.”
Bitzer also noted a drop in support from Biden to Harris in two urban counties. Harris trailed Biden’s numbers by 6,000 votes in Mecklenburg county and 7,000 in Cumberland County.
Christopher Cooper, a political scientist at western Carolina University who studies North Carolina politics, said the state’s support for Republican presidential candidates belies its political split.
“For the 11th time in the last 12 elections, a Republican earned all of North Carolina’s Electoral College votes for president. And, if that’s the only data point you look at, you might think that North Carolina is as red as a Carolina Hurricanes jersey. But, of course, that wasn’t the only election that took place in the Old North State last Tuesday,” he said.
Cooper noted that Democrats won statewide races for governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, secretary of state and superintendent of public instruction. “North Carolina is the only state in the South where voters split their tickets on even one statewide election – to say nothing about five,” he said.
While Trump won North Carolina for a third time – and by a wider margin than in 2020 – the 2024 results still show a purple state, said Asher Hildebrand, a former top aide to Democratic Rep. David Price and now teaching at Duke’s Sanford School of Public Policy.
“North Carolina remains a closely divided state in a closely divided nation,” he said. “While Trump’s margin of victory in 2024 was closer to 2016 than to 2020, the state’s rightward shift was far more modest than many other states. This may reflect the significant investment that the Biden and Harris campaigns made in the state, but it also reflects the long-term demographic trends that have made it a perennial battleground. We are still closer to Virginia than to Florida politically.”
In 2020, Trump’s margin of victory in North Carolina – 1.3 percent – was the closest of any state he won. That gave fresh hope to Democrats that the state’s growth and its changing demographics would put the state in the Democrats’ presidential column this year.
Instead, Trump’s margin grew to 3 percent, but it was a Democrat, Governor-elect Josh Stein,who got the most votes of any candidate. That says something about the toxicity of Stein’s GOP opponent, Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, but it also speaks to the fluidity of North Carolina’s politics.
The picture of where North Carolina’s politics is going is still developing.
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