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Why North Carolina Hasn't Turned Blue and How You Can Help [1]

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Date: 2023-04-06  

A Typical North Carolina electoral map by County

Barack Obama's historic 2008 landslide victory turned Virginia and North Carolina blue at the presidential vote for the first time in 28 years. Since then Virginia has become a solid blue state with Democrats winning nearly every federal election since. At the same time, North Carolina Democrats haven't won a single federal election since. The closeness of every election and some success at statewide elections kept observers thinking North Carolina was on the verge of going blue the way Virginia did. Instead, Georgia turned blue in 2020 and 2022 while North Carolina Democrats keep experiencing heartbreakingly close election losses. So what’s going on in the Tar Heel State? Is it time to give up, or time to grit our teeth and keep going? What can we do to help?

The best way to understand what is going on in the state is to ask 2 distinct questions.

Why didn't North Carolina follow Virginia's trajectory? Why did Georgia turn blue(ish) before North Carolina?

Why didn't North Carolina follow Virginia's trajectory?

The surprising answer is that for a while, it did. Obama in 2008 only won North Carolina by 0.3%. In other words, he barely won. Meanwhile, Obama won Virginia by 6%. So when Obama’s mammoth 2008 win came back down to earth in 2012, he still won Virginia by 3.9%, but lost North Carolina by 2%. That’s about the same percentage change in both states.

It wasn’t until 2016 that the 2 states diverged. Clinton won Virginia by almost 6%, but lost North Caroline by 3%. That’s 2 points better in Virginia, but 1 point worse in North Carolina.

So what happened in 2016?

The electoral coalitions of the parties shifted. I talked about this in my last swing state analysis post. Non-college educated voters — especially white ones — shifted hard to Trump.

Meanwhile, Clinton won the majority of college degree holders — a first for democrats in several decades. The shift was tepid, but democrats have consolidated that group since.

This shift actually benefited Virginia democrats. The percentage of adults with college degrees in Virginia is high. From 2011 to 2021 it went from 35.1% to 41.8%. In North Carolina, it was only 26.9% in 2010 and is only up to 34.9% — it hasn’t even caught up to Virginia of 10 years ago.

So, it wasn’t anything NC democrats screwed up. It wasn’t a permanent, unfixable change. Trump\MAGA interrupted North Carolina’s drift toward democrats by moving a lot more non-college educated white people to the R column. More so than college educated voters in the state were moved to the D column.

Why did Georgia turn blue before North Carolina?

Georgia’s education level is eerily similar to North Carolina’s. Georgia went from 27.6% with a 4 year degree to 34.6% between 2011 to 2021. So why has Georgia, a state that Democrats were doing worse than in NC in 2012 and 2016, flip to blue(ish) first? Especially when Georgia has more evangelical Christians — the most anti-Democratic demographic one can find.

The answer blew me away when I found out. The demographic story of America in the 21st century is how the country keeps getting more diverse and less white. But the speed of the change in Georgia was shocking to me. Between 2011 and 2021, Georgia grew by over a million people while at the same time its white population ticked down by 50,000.

I’m going to type that again because it is an amazing statistic to me. I hear people talk about how Georgia has grown more diverse, but never expressed it in such stark numeric terms: more than 1 million black, Latino, AAPI, and mixed race folks moved to Georgia in the last 10 years while 50,000 white people left(died or moved) without being replaced. There are few, if any, red states that could absorb over a million non-white citizens without turning blue.

North Carolina grew, but not as fast(900,000). And it also added 150,00 white people as part of its growth. So I think that’s why Georgia beat North Carolina to the blue finish line. Its diversity just grew faster. Here’s the links to Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia demographics in 2010 and 2020.

What does this mean for Democrats prospects in North Carolina right now?

North Carolina is like a blend of Virginia and Georgia. It doesn’t have Georgia’s diversity and it doesn’t have Virginia’s college education level nor its lower level of evangelical Christians. To make matters slightly worse, its even more rural than either of those 2 states. (65% urbanized vs 75% for Virginia and Georgia). So when you look at the demographics you start seeing the unique challenges for NC democrats.

Some people have suggested that the party isn’t doing enough or that the candidates haven’t been good enough. But I think that’s only a small part of it. Georgia and Virginia both have demographic advantages over their NC democratic counterparts.

What’s the Path Forward For NC?

The new leader of the democratic party in North Carolina (more about her later), is smartly talking about a 10 year plan of building get-out-the-vote machines. After studying NC demographics, their trends, and the latest county level election turnouts, I’m even more optimistic. With our help, I think 2024 could be the year North Carolina turns blue for the foreseeable future.

The plan is a 3 legged stool: Democrats need to run up the score in North Carolina’s major cities: Raleigh\Durham area, Charlotte, Greensboro\Salem-Winston area, and Fayetteville. Nothing new here, that’s the democratic strategy in every state.

The second leg is to also turn up the score in rural black counties. There are several counties in the Northeastern part of the state that are majority or near majority black. These areas tend to be more rural so its a little more time consuming and costly than GOTV operations in cities. But NC Democrats have no choice. The margins are too low to leave any votes on the table. This stool might not be as obvious to national Democrats, but is a common one in the South. For instance, Georgia’s victories have also depended on rural black votes .

The third leg is every other county. They have to tamp down their losses in as many rural regions as possible. To get the votes they need, NC Democrats need to venture into every rural and small town area and find every vote they can find. Finding extra democratic votes in rural, hostile-to-democrats areas will be a costly operation. But NC democrats have no choice, but to try.

How’d They do in 2022?

When I looked at turnout in NC counties in 2022, I became optimistic. I think there is room to grow for every leg of the stool. North Carolina had 53% turnout in 2018, and a whopping 75% turnout in the presidential year. So its anemic 51% turnout in 2022 stands out. Democrats lost the Senate election by 120,000 votes. Let’s see if we can find them. Here’s a link to the data I’m using(turnout and results)

Leg 1: Running up the score in Urban areas.

The 4 most largest metro areas of North Carolina is Raleigh\Durham, Greensboro\Winston-Salem area, Charlotte, and Fayetteville. Looking at all of them, the only place Dems did a good job at turnout was the Raleigh\Durham area.

Charlotte, on the other hand, was a disaster. The turnout there was less than 44.5%. While it wasn’t the lowest turnout in a blue area, its size meant the most lost votes. If they could’ve pushed turnout to 51%, Dems probably could’ve netted another 50,000 votes.

Fayetteville was bad too. Its blue counties of Cumberland and Hoke County didn’t even hit 40% turnout. That probably left a net of 25,000 votes on the table.

Finally, looking at the Greensboro area of Guilford and Forsyth counties, they weren’t that bad compared to the rest of the state. They had 49% turnout. If they had pushed to 51% turnout they could’ve netted another 10,000.

That’s 85,000 votes extra they could’ve gotten just from the major cities. These are the easiest, low-hanging fruit areas. And we’re already more than 2/3rds of the way towards winning that Senate seat in 2022.

I should also mention Buncombe County (home of Ashville) and New Hanover County (home of Wilmington). Both areas were over 51% turnout so for this simplified analysis I’m not depending on them for extra votes. But, it couldn’t hurt to try and run up the score even more in those areas.

Leg 2: Rural and Small Towns with Large Black Population

I remember on the night of the 2022 election a news anchor repeated a note from a “democratic campaign official” that they had met their turnout goals in the cities, but fell short in the largely black rural counties. That official was stupidly wrong . As I already showed, Dems were woefully short in some of their urban areas. Also, the rural blue county turnout I would describe as “uneven”. Of the 12 rural blue counties in the Northeast: 4 were on par with statewide turnout; 3 are very small and very light blue so wouldn’t net a lot of votes, and only 5 underperformed. So while Dems have room for improvement, its strange to blame these areas when things fell apart so badly in Charlotte and Fayetteville.

Warren, Northampton, Nash had over 51% turnout so can’t find any votes there. Washington was very close with 50% turnout. But being such a small county that’s less than a 100 votes.

Bertie, Hertford, PasQuotank, were just a bit under performed. But the counties are also small or more evenly divided. Probably another 1300 votes in those 3 counties.

Its true that in Halifax, Edgecomb, Vance, and Wilson counties are a little larger and underperformed quite a bit. I estimate Dems left at least 3,000 votes on the table in Halifax, 2,000 votes in Edgecombe, 1,500 in Vance, and another 2,000 votes in Wilson. Pitt County has a medium sized city in it called Greenville. Its a fairly well-educated town that is very diverse. And yet, with only 45% turnout, Dems probably left another 6,500 votes on the table.

Combined, that’s at least another 15,000 easy votes Democrats lost.

Leg 3: Hold down losses in Red areas

The last part is definitely the hardest. While NC Democrats can lose in the rural areas, they can’t lose them all by a lot. Republicans ran up the score in many of the areas with 70, 75, even 80% of the vote in 2022. NC Dems don’t quite have the numbers to abandon these areas. There are 74 red voting counties. That’s 3.6 million registered voters, 1.86 million ballots actually casted, and 0.62 million of them voted for Beasley. If out of all those counties and votes, Dems would only need to increase their vote numbers by 3% to find the final 20,000 votes.

They could do it by registering new voters. They could do it by turning out existing voters. Or they could do it by flipping a republican to a democrat which has the benefit of being counted twice since it also takes away one of Republican vote.

I get it. Some of these are really red rural areas, but some of them are small towns with a more even vote split. It’ll take some work, but it is achievable. It is finding 20,000 voters among 3.6 million.

What about the 2020 vote?

So I’ve show how NC Dems can win a midterm, but what about a national election where turnout is way up (75% in 2020)? Biden lost the state by about 75,000 votes in 2020. I could do the same thing and point out some of the blue areas had only 65% turnout while some red areas had 80% turnout so the votes are there. But I want to take a different approach.



From 2020 to 2023, North Carolina has been growing fast. Its estimated that the 25 blue counties have added 189,000 people. The red voting counties only added 81,000 people. These new people skew diverse and educated — the exact voters NC Dems can target. Even if they couldn’t add any apathetic voters from 2020, just registering newly moved in (or turned 18) voters could get Biden the extra 75,000.

How many ways do I have to show how close North Carolina is?

The votes have all been close and are trending towards Dems.

A County-by-County breakdown shows how we can close the gap.

And just population growth could close the gap.

Folks! We are so damn close to flipping North Carolina.

What if we fail to flip the state?

North Carolina is a 50/50 state right now. Unfortunately thanks to gerrymandering the Republicans have a huge advantage in the legislature. Dems are barely holding on to keep NC from turning into a right-wing hellscape of voter suppression, bad tax policies, and anti-black & anti-trans policies that could keep it red. A recent state legislator switching their affiliation from Democrat to Republican has made things even more dire.

We gotta hold the Governorship in 2024 and stop the legislature’s gerrymandered super-majority. Then in 2026 and 2028 we can try and flip their Supreme Court(maybe even pick up some U.S. Senate seats). Unfortunately, it’ll be 2028 at least before we can fix their Supreme Court and stop their gerrymander. But if we don’t start winning now, it’ll take even longer — maybe even never if activists in the state lose hope and energy.

What Can I do, I don’t even live there?

I’m so glad you asked. The North Carolina party has recently undergone some… changes. The party, like many state parties, had been run by party insiders and former state-wide politicians. However, after a decade or more of failing to win statewide, it seems the on-the-ground activists have revolted and “thrown the bums out”. Many old time leaders have gracefully stepped aside for a new generation while others have been… gently tossed aside.

Members of the North Carolina Democratic Party on Saturday ousted their sitting chair, first vice chair, and second vice chair, voting instead to elect new candidates to the top four leadership positions.

After over a decade of losing so many elections, NC Democrats have completely overhauled the North Carolina Democratic party leadership. Meet Anderson Clayton, new chairwoman of the party.

On Feb. 11, 25-year-old Anderson Clayton from Person County, North Carolina made history by becoming the youngest-ever chair of the North Carolina Democratic Party. She defeated incumbent chair Bobbie Richardson and will serve a two-year term.

And meet her new leadership team:

Former state Sen. Floyd McKissick, one of the party’s longtime proponents of civil rights, was also swept out Saturday. McKissick, 70, lost his seat as first vice chair to Jonah Garson, 36, who chairs the Orange County Democratic Party. Meanwhile, Kimberly Hardy, 51, defeated incumbent second vice chair incumbent Matt Hughes, 32. Elijah King, 21, won the third vice chair position, which was open.

The whole team is young(for a couple, we’ll say they’re “young at heart”) and hungry for victories. Its the kind of energy you want when you need to try something new. Anderson has a plan for flipping the state. Reading it, it sounds a lot like Howard Dean’s 50 state plan but adapted to state level. Run candidates in every local election, on-the-ground-organizing during the entire 2-year election cycle, not just the last 6 months. Reinvigorating local parties, even in rural areas is particularly emphasized — that is something that hasn’t really been emphasized there for a while.

Will the plan work?

I’m usually all about about “throw the bums out, lets try someone new”. This time, while I’m glad for a new group to get in, I am somewhat sympathetic to the previous leadership. As I’ve demonstrated, the electoral coalition shift really pulled the carpet out from under the Democrats that thought they were on the verge of turning blue. But, flipping North Carolina is going to take work. More work than flipping Virginia or even Georgia. So a new plan and new team is required.

As far as its probability of working, my most honest answer is: maybe? Turning the 50 state strategy to a 100 county strategy and running in really red counties is a new approach and is going to require a lot of resources. But I don’t see any other choice. North Carolina is on the brink and needs to flip soon or we may lose activist and volunteer energy.

Speaking of energy, that is what Clayton and the new team has tapped into.

When Anderson Clayton walked into the member meeting of the Union County Democratic Party, her eyes widened and a smile spread across her face as she surveyed the packed room of people who had turned out on a recent weekday evening to meet their new state party chair.

That’s great, but you still haven’t told me how to help!

The key takeaway is that the plan is going to take money to implement. Its going to require hiring professional organizers on the ground across the state. That is money that a state party typically doesn’t have just laying around. The party needs not just local Dems, they need concerned democrats from across the country to help.

President Biden understands the importance of North Carolina.

The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee understand the importance of North Carolina.

Chairwoman Clayton and her team are asking for help.

I don’t normally donate directly to state parities, but I’ve made an exception this year. If you have the means, please consider donating directly to the State Democratic Party in North Carolina. Your funds will help fund organizers throughout the state. If you can, also consider giving monthly. Donating $10 a month for the next 18 months will put your money to far better use than donating even $500 to a candidate a week before an election.

Also, let others know. Please recommend this article and then share with folks who might have the ability to help out.

Conclusion

You’ve seen the trendlines and know that its possible for Dems to win North Carolina. You’ve seen how its possible that it can happen in 2024. You’ve read the new plan. And you’ve met the new team. And you’ve seen how they’re going to try something different. And you know the stakes for failure are high. The only question is, will you help your fellow Dems out?

Donate Here via Act Blue

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