Starting today, Insightus is launching a twice-weekly analysis of near-real-time North Carolina State Board of Elections data to gauge voter turnout in the Tar Heel State for the 2016 election — beginning with absentee-by-mail voting (already underway), and expanding to Early Voting beginning on October 20th.
North Carolina’s State Board of Elections provides rich and detailed data regarding early voters, including their ages, races, genders, party affiliations, and much more. It’s an important resource for taking the pulse of voter turnout in this critically important battleground state, and we’ll run the unfolding story down for you twice a week (Tuesday and Thursday evenings, at 9 PM ET) from now through Election Day eve.
Here’s an interesting tidbit from the series’ first installment, published today: among all the demographics we track, only one is currently topping its 2012 turnout performance so far in this cycle — black voters. So far this season, black voters’ absentee-by-mail turnout is up a whopping 20% over 2012.
Has Trump awakened North Carolina’s sometimes sleeping giant...the African American vote?