Dkos: Dems start fast out of the box: NC mail-in voting starts
North Carolina has one of the closest Senate races in the nation, with incumbent Senator Kay Hagan facing off against NC House Speaker Thom Tillis. NC starts mail-in absentee balloting 60 days before the election, earliest voting in the nation. The NC State Board of Elections has voter files at ftp://alt.ncsbe.gov/... that can be data mined. This years data shows that compared with 2010, mail-in requests have jumped 96% on this year's day 1 (Friday 9/5 this year), from 3337 to 6459 civilian in-country requests (there have also been about 1100 military and overseas requests). Now, usually mail-in voting in NC heavily benefits the GOP, but this year there has been a massive shift towards the Democrats, with a HUGE jump in Black turnout. (NC has registration by party, with race, sex and age in database) MORE BELOW THE JUMP
In 2010, the party breakdown in Day 1 requests were:
Democrat 36.7%
Libertarian 0.1%
Republican 46.1%
Unaffiliated 17.1%
Now, for 2014's Day 1:
Democrat 42.4%
Libertarian 0.2%
Republican 38.4%
Unaffiliated 19.0%
Dems are up 5.7%, GOP is down 7.7%, a significant 13.4% shift.
But more significantly, in an election where Black turnout could make the difference (and where in 2010 there was a huge enthusiasm dropoff), Blacks made up 10% of the 2010 day 1 requests, and 17% of those in 2014. On an absolute basis, the increase in total number of requests from Black voters are up 229% from 2010 (333 to 1098).
There has also been a big urban trend in 2014. Including the military and overseas ballots, 2016 of the 7560 total requests (26.6% of the total) come from just two Democratic leaning counties, Mecklenburg (Charlotte) and Wake (Raleigh and Cary). Those two counties, with a million residents each, make up 20.0% of the State's population.
So, we now have the first actual election data in the nation, not based on polls. While there are still 58 days til the election, this Day 1 snapshot could be a significant portent. If the GOP is trailing in their traditional strong-hold of mail-in ballots, could this show things to come?
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/09/07/1327802/-Dems-start-fast-out-of-the-box-NC-mail-in-voting-starts
= new reply since forum marked as read
For those following NC politics, this is interesting too:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/09/05/1327461/-Let-s-flip-a-House-seat-this-November-support-Laura-Fjeld-for-Congress-D-NC-06
Laura Fjeld ("Fyeld"
for NC 06, a district gerrymandered by the Republicons in 2013.
reflect a trend....