Usually, when someone writes a headline as a question, you can bet the answer to that question will be “no.” And perhaps Tuesday night will make it so, but as it stands now, the person who will win North Carolina is…. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
This seems odd, I know, since we’re hearing that Democrats are outvoting Republicans in the Tar Heel State, but as CNN reports, those raw numbers don’t tell the whole story. For starters, Hillary Clinton is underperforming President Obama in 2012, while Donald Trump is overperforming Mitt Romney.
Fewer Democrats participated in early voting in the state this year, while 125,000 more Republicans participated. Now, this doesn’t mean all those Democrats voted for Clinton or that all those Republicans voted for Trump. Independents, however, have cast nearly 810,000 votes — up 42 percent from 2012. In 2012 they broke for Romney, but Trump is no Romney, so we won’t know until Election Day how they voted.
Early votes in 2012 also showed Obama in the lead, but Romney ultimately won the state.
Last-minute polls show Clinton ahead in the state, but CNN points to several demographic factors that work in Trump’s favors. Clinton is the overwhelming favorite among African-Americans, but their share of the vote has dropped 5 percent so far this election. Trump, meanwhile, is winning white voters, and their vote share has increased by 3 percent.
Another thing working in Trump’s favor is that young Democrats aren’t showing up to the polls to vote early. Just one third of 22- to 29-year-old Democrats who voted in 2012 showed up this time around (so far). Nearly 75 percent of young Republicans came out early (although it’s as yet unclear whether they voted for Trump).
Again, it’s early, and there’s no guarantee that people voted along party lines, but with the information we have now, Trump might pull out an upset in the Tar Heel State.
Ashe Schow is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
