Changes in North Carolina Voter Registrations

Two Years of Changes in North Carolina Voter Registrations

As Democratic Registrations Decline, Republicans Are on Track to Overtake Them in 2027

by Dr. Andy Jackson

January 4, 2024

With a new year upon us, let’s see how voter registrations have changed over the past two years.

Why look at changes over two years instead of one?  The North Carolina State Board of Elections (SBE) conducts biennial list maintenance at the start of each odd-numbered year, removing hundreds of thousands of registrations that have been inactive and unreachable for almost a decade.  While that maintenance is important, it means that measuring registration changes over a full two-year election cycle more accurately reflects what is happening in voter registrations.

I use data from the John Locke Foundation’s Voter Registration Changes page, which pulls data directly from the SBE.

Here are some of the key findings.

Democrats Down, Republicans Up, Unaffiliated Up a Lot

As of December 30, there are 2,414,165 Democrats, 2,220,460 Republicans, and 2,701,124 unaffiliated voters in North Carolina.  As seen in the first chart, that represents a decline of 81,395 Democrats, an increase of 37,285 Republicans, and an increase of 232,212 unaffiliated voter registrations over the past two years.  Overall, voter registrations increase from 7,195,641 to 7,393,190 during that period.

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https://www.johnlocke.org/two-years-of-changes-in-north-carolina-voter-registrations/