Watchdog: Voter stereotypes have changed

Both parties should be paying attention to changes in North Carolina voters as the mid-term elections approach with a U.S. Senate seat up for grabs. Bob Hall, executive director of the political campaign watchdog group Democracy North Carolina, notes that by far the majority of new voter registrations in the last decade are independent, urban and non-white. For more information click here:


Hall notes in a news release:

“A new county-by-county analysis of North Carolina voters points to dramatic shifts in the past decade that will likely influence campaign strategy for hot elections this year for Richard Burr’s US Senate seat and for control of the General Assembly.

“The numbers tell the story. For example, while the registration rolls of Democrats and Republicans have grown by 11 percent and 16 percent respectively since 2000, the number of voters choosing to not affiliate with any party soared by 83 percent. In fact, the 627,500 new unaffiliated voters are over half of the 1,162,000 voters added during the decade.

“The report provides county-by-county data on the changing racial and partisan composition of the electorate, the growth of urban counties, the increase in young voters and the number of adults not registered to vote.”

Hall writes: “The growth of urban and suburban counties and surge of independent voters means the political parties must scramble to win elections with a smaller share of reliably loyal voters on their side. Stereotypes of the Republican rural conservative and the straight-ticket, African-American Democrat are giving way to a more complex profile of the North Carolina electorate.”