With early voting at the half-way mark, data from the MeckBOE website shows turnout favorable to Democratic candidates in the NCGA races for current Republican seats covering North Mecklenburg. Specifically, this analysis covers NC Senate 41 currently held by Jeff Tarte and NC House 98 currently held by John Bradford - both of Cornelius. It does not cover NC House 107 held by Democrat Chaz Beasley.
North Mecklenburg has long been a Republican stronghold. In fact, Davidson Precinct 206 has been the only consistently blue area in Lake Norman for years. aShortChronicle posted about that previously in
this post from 2012. However, since that time the I77 Hot Lanes controversy has turned some races on their heads with more voters crossing party lines in response to that controversial project. The most notable being the Governor's race in 2016 with 10's of thousands of LKN voters who had previously voted Republican going for Democrat Roy Cooper over Republican Pat McCrory. See the details of that
here.
While so far the I77 controversy hasn't trickled down in an impactful way to recent General Assembly races, there are vocal anti-toll voices both for and against the incumbents who have been working, to date unsuccessfully, to negate the tolling contract. That could be important if these races become close for other reasons.
Those other reasons potentially impacting these races include the known fact of legislative redistricting and potential fact of a so called "blue wave" being driven by national issues.
Redistricting will definitely impact the outcome of these races. Read about the details of that
here. In NC Senate 41 currently held by Republican incumbent Jeff Tarte against Democrat challenger Natasha Marcus, the new district lines shift the race in favor of the challenger. In this race, the southern half of the district shifted from eastern Mecklenburg to western Mecklenburg. In the NC House 98 district currently held by Republican John Bradford against Democrat challenger Christy Clark, the new district became slightly more Republican with some shifts on its southern edge.
Those redistricting impacts will have an effect and can be seen in the early turnout numbers. The impact of any "blue wave" remains to be seen, but the turnout numbers so far indicate something may be in the making. Check out the below analysis of data from the MeckBOE website.
There are a few things to note on these numbers. This data goes through voting on Friday, 10/26 - the midpoint of early voting this election. The early vote turnout (EVT) numbers include all ballots cast and requested. It is assumed that the vast majority of mail in ballots requested will eventually be returned. The totals may look off slightly if one tries to reconcile them to the BOE raw data because these numbers don't include smaller party registration numbers and people in unincorporated areas for the North Meck totals. The North Meck totals for the towns only include Davidson, Cornelius, and Huntersville minus voters in NCH107, unincorporated areas, and the smaller parties as previously mentioned. Overall, these things won't change the overall outcomes of the analysis much if at all.
Here's what these numbers tell you.
First, Democrats are, so far, outperforming by a pretty significant margin in the North Mecklenburg towns relative to their voter registration percentage. That's could be taken as a sign of voter enthusiasm among Democrats. Since North Mecklenburg is heavily Republican, one would expect a bigger turnout lead for their candidates. Also, the overall turnout at North Mecklenburg polling sites is running significantly ahead of early voting in the last mid-term election in 2014. These things speak to the possibility of a blue wave, at least locally.
Second, the turnout totals by electoral district show the major impact redistricting is having, particularly in NC Senate 41. The overall turnout lead the Democrats are building in this race is being driven entirely by the newly included southern portion. In NC House 98, redistricting, as expected, is helping Republican totals, but instead of significantly expanding a lead it is just helping them keep pace.
Obviously, the big unknown is how unaffiliated voters break. There are some reasonable assumptions that can be made here. The most basic is that most UNA voters consistently vote one party or the other. Few actually are true ticket splitters. Based on that, it would be safe to assume that if registered Democrats are outperforming, that Democrat-leaning UNA voters are too. These assumptions, if true, may narrow the historical gap enjoyed by Republicans in NC House 98 race.
In the NC Senate 41 race, the UNA votes cast so far are almost evenly split between the portions in the three northern towns and the southern part of the district. If one assumes the UNA voters in the northern part of the district are more Republican leaning and the UNA voters in the south are more Democratic leaning, that would mean they likely cancel each other out to a large part and won't close the 2000+ turnout gap the Democrats currently possess. If the trend continues, the Republicans will have to close that gap on election day when Republicans tend to turnout at higher rates. The larger the gap, the harder that will be to do.
Finally, there is the unknowable impact national events and negative ads will have on these state level races. Will recent national events spur more turnout or ticket splitting than expected? Will the economy help Republicans? Will the negative ad flyers that have been landing in local mailboxes lately gin up the base or will they backfire?
While early turnout data tells quite a bit, it's the answers to these unknowable questions that will likely determine the final outcome.
