(The Center Square) – North Carolina’s population has more than doubled in the past two decades and the number of registered voters has increased by more than 2.4 million, yet Republicans and Democrats have only seen modest gains in strength.
Meanwhile, registered independents are now the largest voting group.
This is a considerable improvement from the middle of the Bush administration, when Republicans trailed Democrats in approval ratings, 47.6% to 17.7%.
Two state politics and elections experts agree there's more to it than just the numbers.
And your strategy for the next 140 days should be chess, not checkers.
“In the research I conducted with Michael Bitzer, Whitney Ross Manzo and Susan Roberts, we found that independent voters are best understood as 'unaffiliated voters,'” Chris Cooper, a professor of politics and public policy at Western Carolina University, told The Center Square on Wednesday.
“They tend to stay in partisan positions, but because there's nothing to tie them there, major political shifts can take them in unpredictable directions.”
The reliability of voter turnout also concerns this group.
“The rise in independent voters makes the political landscape in races a little less predictable,” Andy Jackson, director of the Civitas Center for Public Integrity, told The Center Square on Wednesday.
“They will have to rely on other data, such as which primaries independents vote in and what media they consume, to predict which party they are likely to support. Campaigns will have to devote more effort and resources to turnout efforts.”
Jackson echoed Cooper, saying independent voters “behave like weak partisans.”
He estimates that 10% are truly independents, meaning they are evenly split in their support for political parties.
In the 20 years since January 1, 2004, the state's population has increased by 26.7%.
By Saturday, voter registration had also changed significantly: At the time, of more than 5 million eligible voters, 47.6% were Democrats, 34.4% were Republicans and 17.7% were Independents; now, of more than 7.4 million eligible voters, 37.2% are Independents, 31.9% are Democrats and 30% are Republicans.
In terms of registration numbers, the state's population has more than doubled in two decades to more than 10.8 million, but Democrats have just 11,854 more registered voters and 220,040 fewer than the day Joe Biden was elected president.
The number of Republican supporters has increased by more than 525,000 over the past 20 years, but has decreased by 25,573 since November 7, 2020.
Meanwhile, the number of voters who chose no party affiliation increased from fewer than 900,000 to more than 2.8 million.
Under Biden, that number increased by 353,566.
The bloc grew by 387,096 people in the four years between former President Donald Trump's election win and loss.
As the Trump-Biden rematch approaches, that number stands at just under 750,000 people, 6.8% of the population and one in 10 of all registered voters.
Jackson noted that in 2020, turnout was 69.8% for independents, 81.6% for Republicans and 75.1% for Democrats.
Trump won North Carolina in 2016 and 2020, as have every Republican presidential candidate in the past 60 years except for Gerald Ford in 1976 and John McCain in 2008.
The polling consensus, including after his felony conviction, has him leading by about 5 percentage points with just over four months to go.
Republicans also hold three-fifths majorities in each house of the state legislature.
However, since 1900, only three Republicans have held the governorship.
As the summer heat begins to bite, polls show Republican Lt. Governor Mark Robinson and Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein in a close race.
“Independents tend to be younger than partisans, and younger generations vote less frequently,” Jackson said, explaining the low turnout among them. “So campaigns that want to win over independents have a lot of work to do.”
And that, Cooper adds, “is the fight for independent voters, which is key to winning in North Carolina — not because they're universally persuasive, but because a small nudge in mobilization can be the key to victory.”
