(The Center Square) – Only 21,559 voter registrations separate Republicans from catching Democrats, the weekly update from the North Carolina State Board of Elections says.
The final day of May listed 7,522,857 registrations split 37.8% unaffiliated, 30.7% Democrats and 30.4% Republicans. The trend is a continuing a turn of two decades for Democrats, punctuated by the Grand Old Party’s historic first-in-140 years grab of both General Assembly chambers 15 years ago, and those listing unaffiliated.
The highest percentage on record for the independent bloc was 37.9% on Oct. 19.
More recently, justices on the state Supreme Court – partisanship for candidates was off the ballots from 2004 to 2016 – were 6-1 Democrats as recently as prior to Election Day 2020. Today it is 5-2 Republicans.
On Election Day 2008, Democrats had 864,253 more registrations than Republicans. From the state’s more than 6.2 million registrations, Democrats owned 45.8% of the registrations to 34.7% for Republicans and 19.4% for the unaffiliated bloc.
SUPREME COURT TAKES UP GOP CHALLENGE TO COUNTING MAIL-IN BALLOTS THAT ARRIVE AFTER ELECTION DAY
Already, however, the change to independence was on. On Jan. 1, 2004, the state’s more than 5 million voters were split 47.6% Democrats, 34.4% Republicans and 17.7% unaffiliated.
Voter roll maintenance has been ongoing. Smaller party changes are anticipated soon. And the impact of the state auditor over the State Board of Elections is forecast to yield cleaner rolls. On Jan. 1, the difference of Democrats more than Republicans was 90,918. Politicos are forecasting the GOP to pass the state’s longtime dominant party about December or January.