It is 15 days until election day on November 3. The deadline for regular voter registration was October 9.
Here are some relevant upcoming dates from the North Carolina State Board of Elections:
- Oct. 20: Absentee ballot request deadline (5 p.m.).
- Oct. 31: In-person early voting ends (3 p.m.).
- Nov. 3: Election Day (Deadline for most absentee ballots)
Democrats start out of the early voting gate strong
Early voting started on Thursday, October 15. As seen on Vote Tracker, as of the morning of October 19, county boards of elections have accepted 525,970 ballots. Election officials had accepted 383,029 at the same point in 2022 and 454,337 in 2018 (early voting started one day earlier in 2018).
Democratic vote share (45.7 percent) is more than twice that of Republicans (19.6 percent). Unaffiliated voters account for 34.6 percent of total turnout.
Compared with other recent midterm elections, the Republican share is down by over 10 percentage points from the average of the 2018 and 2022 midterms. The Democratic share is up about four points, and the unaffiliated share is up almost seven points.
While there is a tendency for Democrats to slip and Republicans to gain during early voting, there is no precedent for a shift large enough for Republicans to reach their 30.7 percent average at the end of early voting on October 31.
Absentee ballot slowdown continues
As seen at Vote Tracker, election officials have accepted 40,439 absentee ballots so far. That is well off the 2022 pace of 57,837, but over the 2018 pre-COVID turnout of 21,985 at the same point.
Do not expect the 30.1 percent drop in absentee voting to pick up. Absentee ballot requests are down a neat 33.3 percent compared to the same point in 2022.
There is no time for an absentee voting comeback. The deadline to request an absentee ballot is October 20. That is seven days earlier than the previous deadline. The change was made after the General Assembly changed the deadline for election boards to receive absentee ballots from three days after election day to election day. Another consideration is concern about the potential for ballots to be delivered late.
Republican regisrations actually declined last week
Looking at voter registration starting 15 weeks before election day, Democrats are keeping up their 2018 pace, with a net gain of 17,352 registrations. Unaffiliated registration gains are also similar to their 2018 pace, although they dropped off a bit this week.
The real story, however, is one of Republican decline. Republicans are about 14,000 registrations behind where they were at the same point in 2018, in terms of registration gains. The decline was literal this week, when the number of Republican registrations dropped by 304. The last time either of the major parties’ registration numbers dropped was in 2014, when North Carolina did not have same-day registration.
As always, the closer we get to election day, the more predictive the data will become.
