Good news for the GOP, as well as "You can never have enough bar graphs"

Published October 12, 2014

by Michael Bitzer, Professor of Political Science, Catawba College, October 10, 2014.

As we near the end of the week in terms of the data on North Carolina's mail-in absentee balloting, there's some good news for Republicans in their quest to catch up to the surprising performance by registered Democrats and unaffiliated voters.

Among the 37,881 requests for ballots through yesterday (10-9), requests from registered Republican voters now stands at 37 percent, while the requests from registered Democrats dropped to 39 percent. Unaffiliated voters requesting mail-in ballots stood at 24 percent.

 

You can really tell the difference in the arc of the top graphic (above) where the GOP red-line is catching up to the blue line of Democrats.  Among these requested ballots so far:

  • Women are still 56 percent of the requested ballots to 43 percent for men.

  • White voters are 82 percent of the requested ballots to 12 percent for black voters.

Even with this catch-up by GOP registered voters, Democrats continue their pace at returning and having their ballots accepted.

 

Among the ballots counted as votes for November 4's election:

  • 43 percent are from registered Democrats

  • 36 percent from registered Republicans

  • 22 percent from registered unaffiliated voters

  • 54 percent from female voters

  • 45 percent from male voters

  • 82 percent from white voters

  • 13 percent from black voters

And for the category of "You Can Never Have Enough Bar Graphs" for the end of the week: in comparing the percentage increase in this year's numbers from the last mid-term election in 2010, Democrats and unaffiliated voters are substantial ahead of their day-to-day comparisons while Republicans had been exceeding but, in the past few days, slightly dropped, below their 2010 comparable numbers.

In addition, I looked at the 2014 voters who have requested mail-in absentee ballots and compared it to their voting method in 2010's election:

While the "enthusiasm" attention has squarely been on Republican voters, these graphs contend that in North Carolina, an organized campaign (whether by a national or candidate's organization) is in full swing for all party registered voters, but notably for Democrats, in terms of those who didn't vote in 2010 and who have voted this year via mail-in balloting.

 

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