By Wesley Young
Media General News Service

Voter participation increased in 2008 among whites, blacks and Hispanics in North Carolina compared with 2004, a new Census Bureau survey about the presidential election shows.

Chalk it up to North Carolina’s status as a “state in play” during the 2008 general election, said Ferrel Guillory, an election analyst.

“The Democratic campaign poured a lot of resources into the state, in television commercials and a get-out-the-vote effort,” said Guillory, who is the director of the Program on Public Life at the UNC Center for the
Study of the American South. “That activity generated a high turnout, mostly on the Democratic side.”

“You had a higher turnout, particularly among black voters who found themselves with an opportunity to make history,” he said.

North Carolina had a 95 percent turnout among black registered voters and 88 percent among registered white voters.

The turnout numbers for North Carolina were quite different than the numbers for the United States as a whole.

Nationally, the share of eligible voters who cast ballots in November declined for the first time in several years. The reason: Older whites with little interest in backing either Barack Obama or John McCain stayed home.

Census figures released Monday show about 63.6 percent of all U.S. citizens ages 18 and older, or 131.1 million people, voted last November.

Although that represented an increase of 5 million voters — virtually all of them minorities — the turnout relative to the population of eligible voters was a decrease from 63.8 percent in 2004.

Ohio and Pennsylvania were among those showing declines in white voters, helping Obama carry those battleground states.

“While the significance of minority votes for Obama is clearly key, it cannot be overlooked that reduced white support for a Republican candidate allowed minorities to tip the balance in many slow-growing ‘purple’ states,” said William H. Frey, a demographer for the Brookings Institution, referring to key battleground states that do not notably tilt Democrat or Republican.

“The question I would ask is if a continuing stagnating economy could change that,” he said.
Where North Carolina has been colored Republican red in every presidential election since 1976, the
Democratic presidential ticket of Barack Obama and Joe Biden carried the state by about 14,000 votes last year.

The Census Bureau figures are estimates based on a survey sample and are subject to margins of error that vary depending on the group measured.

The Census Bureau reported that nationwide the number of black voters increased by 2 million, as did the number of Hispanic voters. The number of non-Hispanic white voters was about the same as in 2004.

All three ethnic groups showed increased voter participation in North Carolina, the survey said. About 68 percent of the white population voted in 2008, compared with 61.5 percent in 2004. Among blacks older than 18, about 67 percent said they voted in 2008, compared with 63 percent in 2004.

Hispanic voter participation grew from eight percent to 21 percent, but the survey found that 65 percent of North Carolina’s Hispanics with citizenship cast ballots in 2008.

Although the Census Bureau figures do not show it, Guillory said, younger voters overwhelmingly favored Obama.

“The third thing is that if you look at the numbers by county, you see Obama did especially well in the state’s major metropolitan areas,” he said.

Although a breakdown by race and age was not available on the state level, the Census Bureau figures showed that a smaller percentage of North Carolina voters between 65 and 74 voted in 2008 compared with 2004.

“The internal dynamics shifted just enough to give the Democrats victory in 2008 but we remain a high competitive state,” Guillory said.

“What the Census Bureau numbers help show is that when you have a competitive election and voters feel that a lot is at stake they will come out to vote.”

RALEIGH, N.C. – Don’t call North Carolina a red state anymore.

Whether this year’s election marked a permanent or temporary turning point toward the Democrats, the results indicate just how much North Carolina has changed in the six years since arch conservative Sen. Jesse Helms left office.

Helms’ seat is now in Democratic hands for the first time since 1973, and the party handily snatched it from one of the GOP’s most respected names, Elizabeth Dole, by putting forth a pro-abortion candidate that few had ever heard of, Kay Hagan.

That Barack Obama is on the brink of becoming the first Democrat to win here since 1976 underscores a daunting downfall for Republicans in a state that just one election ago backed President Bush by 12 percentage points – the same year that John Edwards, a North Carolinian, was on the Democratic ticket.

Exit poll numbers indicate that Obama’s aggressive push here, which helped sweep in Hagan and gubernatorial candidate Bev Perdue, may have established a brawny base that could be here for years to come.

Voters under the age of 30 comprised 17 percent of the electorate this year, higher than the 14 percent from four years ago. And they broke heavily to Obama, with more than seven in 10 choosing the Democrat. Hagan and Perdue rode those coattails, backed by more than six in 10 of younger voters.

By comparison, Democratic hopeful John Kerry won just over half of the support of voters under 30 in North Carolina four years ago. And Democrat Al Gore won less than half of that demographic in 2000.

Paul Shumaker, a Republican political consultant who works with Sen. Richard Burr, said the party needs to become competitive in growing urban areas by talking about kitchen-table issues instead of ideology.

He said Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory was the ideal candidate for the state – a pro-business moderate – but that he failed to win because of an unreliable donor base. The Democrats have a more steady stream of donations that have long helped keep them in office, and Perdue far outpaced him in such fundraising.

“We cannot approach these campaigns with a 1980s mentality and a 1980s budget,” said Shumaker, arguing that the GOP needs to reorganize in the state to bring forward a common message that has broad appeal.

But Shumaker disputed the idea that this year’s election marked an ideological shift. He said the race was a matter of issues that matter to voters. With the right candidates and the right message at the right time, the Republicans will make a comeback, he said.

“Politics is fluid,” Shumaker said. “It swings to the left; it swings to the right. It can’t swing any further to the left.”

It’s no coincidence that North Carolina’s sharp trajectory away from the era of Helms came during its rapid growth spurt. North Carolina has added more than 1 million residents since the beginning of the decade, with the most recent years showing growth of 200,000 new people annually.

Much of that growth has come in the state’s more liberal communities along the Interstate-85 corridor. Tryon Street in Charlotte – home to the Bank of America Corp. and the remnants of Wachovia Corp. – feels more like Wall Street. The Research Triangle Park serves as the source for thousands of high-tech jobs. Both regions have young work forces drawn in part from the nationally ranked colleges and universities in North Carolina.

And those areas broke heavily to Obama. Durham County went to him by a remarkable 52 points. He won Orange County by 43 points, Mecklenburg County by 25 points, Guilford County by 18 points and Wake County by 15 points.

In other words, for political purposes, North Carolina’s urban areas looked more like a northern state the a southern one. Obama did well with voters on both ends of the education spectrum, winning big among those who didn’t finish high school and having a slight advantage with voters who’ve done at least some postgraduate study. Voters in between – high school grads and people who went to college, but not graduate school – leaned toward McCain.

Hagan and Perdue had similar advantages in their respective races at both ends of the educational spectrum. They ran roughly even with their Republican opponents among voters in-between. Jack Hawke, McCrory’s chief political strategist, attributed the Democrats’ victories at the top of the ticket to the Obama campaign strategy in North Carolina.

“You had one of the best organizational ground-game type efforts that has ever been seen in the state. … It’s amazing,” Hawke said. “The Obama ground game was delivering party voters.

They were not delivering split-ticket voters. So that helped the entire Democratic ticket.”

Hunter Bacot, the poll director at Elon University, said the GOP in North Carolina will have to evolve quickly to keep the state competitive by winning new residents into their fold. After all, those retirees from the north that are coming to North Carolina also tend to be wealthy and somewhat conservative.

“The Republicans are going to have to transition to this new Republican – more of a pro-business Republican – which in North Carolina is very similar to the Democrats,” Bacot said. “So what you might actually see is a fusion where they come close together rather than farer apart.”

Bacot said one example of the Republican needed for the future would be someone like Burr.

Problem is, the GOP landed with such a candidate for governor. McCrory still lost, and didn’t even win his home county of Mecklenburg – the state’s largest.

Likewise, Tuesday’s election served as a warning to Republican candidates for president who can no longer assume that North Carolina’s in their column.

“They can’t be complacent with North Carolina anymore,” Bacot said. “They’re going to have to come in to work. How intense that will be remains to be seen.”

RALEIGH, N.C. — This election said a lot about North Carolina’s political makeup. What typically is a “red state,” elected a Democratic state senator, governor and is very close to electing a Democratic president.

It was a big night for Democrats and voters like Courtney Barshay aren’t completely surprised.

“Things seem to be changing people seem a little less conservative,” Barshay said.

First-time voter Lyndsay Windley said she thinks the change will be for the better.

“I have a young son and I wish the best future for him and I think that political change, it’s just going to change Raleigh,” Windley said.

As a Hispanic voter, Dennis Flanagan sees a window for changes he believes in.

“I think it’s awesome I think it’s one of the most outstanding things that have ever happened,” Flanagan said.

But more conservative voters like Karen Miller are disappointed in this election.

“I’m very fearful of the changes not only in North Carolina but in the whole us, yeah, just fearful,” Miller said. “I just figured they would follow that southern trend republican stronghold.”

Peace College Political Science Professor David McLennan believes Obama helped carry Beverly Perdue for governor and Kay Hagan for the U.S. Senate seat.

“I think does this mean North Carolina will be a blue state in 2012? Not necessarily. I just think everything lined up for the Democrats: an unpopular president, an economy that’s faltering,” McLennan said.

More democratic control, McLennan said, could impact North Carolina in terms of policy.

“There could be more of an alignment between policy and Washington and policy and Raleigh, healthcare is a prime example of how there could be a nice alignment,” McLennan said.

It might not be an overall transformation from “red” to “blue,” he said, but rather an election based a lot of people, ready for something to change.

Preliminary results from a national Associated Press exit poll of voters in Tuesday’s elections:
     
      THE ECONOMY DOMINATES
      Six in 10 voters picked the economy as the most important issue facing the nation. None of four other issues on the list – energy, Iraq, terrorism and health care – was picked by more than one in 10.

Not surprisingly, voters also have a very sour view of the condition of the nation’s economy. About half said it’s poor and nearly all the rest said it’s not good.

At least four in 10 said their family’s financial situation has gotten worse in the past four years. A third said it’s about the same and about a quarter said it’s gotten better.

Looking ahead, half of voters said they’re very worried the current economic crisis will harm their family’s finances over the next year and another third were somewhat worried about that. But nearly half said they think the nation’s economy will get better over the next year.
     
      OTHER WORRIES
      Two-thirds of voters said they’re worried about being able to afford the health care they need. And at least as many said they worried there will be another terrorist attack in the United States.
     
      NEW VOTERS
      One in 10 voters said they were voting this year for the first time, and they were disproportionately young and nonwhite. Six in 10 of those voters were under age 30. One in five new voters were black and about as many were Hispanic. A quarter of new voters said they don’t have landline phones at home, only cell phones.
     
      BUSH AND CONGRESS
      As they have in pre-election polls, President Bush and Congress get low marks from voters. Only about one in five approve of how Bush is handling his job, and Congress fared no better.
     
      OTHER ISSUES
      Six in 10 voters said future appointments to the Supreme Court were an important factor in their vote.
      Two-thirds favor drilling for oil offshore in U.S. waters where it is not allowed now.
      More than half oppose the $700 billion government plan to help failing financial companies.
     
      DEMOGRAPHICS
      As usual, women were a little more numerous than men in the electorate.
      About one in seven voters were under age 30 and as many were over 65.
      A third reported household income of less than $50,000; a quarter had income of more than $100,000.
      One in five had no more than a high school diploma; nearly half had a college degree.
      One in four voters were white born-again evangelical Christians.
      Nearly half of voters have a gun in their household.
      —
      The results are based on a preliminary, partial sample of more than 2,400 voters in Election Day exit polls and telephone interviews over the past week for early voters.

It’s happening again. We knew it would.

As the presidential race narrows to a handful of states where the two candidates are clawing to get over the top, Florida would be each man’s top prize. And the Tampa Bay area is their key to Florida.

As in 2000 and 2004, the race here has exploded in a welter of television ads, “robocalls,” visiting celebrities and mega-rallies.

The result, according to experts, political insiders and a rash of conflicting polls, is a race in Florida that’s simply too close to call. Either candidate could win.

But for John McCain and Barack Obama, a win would have drastically different meanings.

Obama can win the presidency in Florida, but he can’t lose it here.

McCain can lose the presidency in Florida, but he can’t win it here.

That’s because for McCain, Florida is a must-win. The arithmetic of the Electoral College and the states where the two are competing mean McCain can’t reach a majority without Florida’s 27 electoral votes.

“If Obama wins Florida, we’ll all go to bed early on election night,” said veteran political scientist Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia.

But even if McCain scores a victory in Florida, as his supporters say they are confident he will, he must win other contested battleground states to become president.

Unfortunately for McCain, those are all states that President Bush won in 2004 but that Obama is now leading, tied or close.

Besides the largest battleground, Florida, Sabato listed Ohio, Virginia and Colorado, all with Obama leads, and North Carolina, Indiana, Nevada, Montana and North Dakota, where polls generally show tossups.

That means Obama is on offense, threatening to take back Republican-leaning states. McCain is on defense in a war being fought on what should be his turf.

“Obama doesn’t need Florida – he’s got so many advantages now,” Sabato said. “A chance of carrying both Montana and North Dakota, both strong red states, and a tie in Indiana, where Bush won by 27 points in ‘04.”
Nonetheless, Obama has been drastically outspending McCain in Florida on television advertising, and equaling or exceeding him in personal appearances.

Obama; his wife, Michelle; Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton; and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson barnstormed Florida for the first three days of last week to urge early voting.

McCain answered with two stops in Florida on Thursday, plus tours by daughter Meghan McCain and Sen. Joe Lieberman.

With a significant Electoral College lead in state-by-state polls, Obama has the luxury of campaigning where he wants, but McCain must keep one foot planted in Florida and pivot to other states.

McCain has been promising supporters he would bring his Florida TV spending up to parity. Brian Ballard, his state co-chairman, expected near-equality by last week.

But for the seven days ending Tuesday, Obama spent $4.3 million to McCain’s $1.1 million plus another $400,000 spent on McCain’s behalf by the national Republican Party, said Evan Tracey of the Campaign Media Analysis Group, which tracks political spending.

The Nielsen Co., which tracks numbers of political spots, showed a 3-to-1 advantage for Obama through Wednesday.

Obama will appear at a rally with Bill Clinton in Orlando on Wednesday. Sarah Palin was in Tampa and Kissimmee on Sunday, and Joe Biden is to appear in New Port Richey on Monday, following the visit of his wife, Jill, to Tampa on Saturday. McCain’s wife, Cindy, and Rudy Giuliani were in West Palm Beach Sunday.
McCain, many experts say, should not be in danger of losing Florida.

After Obama and other Democratic candidates boycotted the state’s Jan. 29 primary and Obama didn’t set up a campaign organization until summer, many insiders expected a relatively easy McCain win.

McCain also had the support of Gov. Charlie Crist, whose endorsement helped him win the Florida primary. Crist promised to deliver the state for McCain.

The governor may still keep that promise. But since McCain picked Palin as his running mate, disappointing Crist, there have been questions about whether Crist has been campaigning wholeheartedly for McCain. The governor contends he has.

No one denies there has been tension and disagreement between the state party and the McCain campaign about who should run the show.

There’s also disagreement among recent polls.

Some show McCain coming back from a deficit early in the month to lead by a percentage point or two, statistical ties. But a few have shown Obama with leads of 5 to 7 percentage points.

“Some of these pollsters are going to look smart and some stupid on Election Day,” Sabato said.

Even some veteran Florida political operatives are mystified.

“Bizarre numbers,” said longtime GOP strategist Cory Tilley. “You just have to come to one conclusion: It’s close – probably close to the margin of error.”

Ballard said private polls he has seen convince him McCain is slightly ahead.

Democratic pollster Jim Kitchens offered an explanation for the mixed results: Pollsters don’t know how to account for the large numbers of new voters, mostly young people and minorities, that Obama’s campaign has registered.

Pollsters “weight” their samples, counting some responses more, to make up for underrepresented demographic groups. Some pollsters may be weighting young and minority respondents to take account of the new registrants.

But will those traditionally low-turnout minorities and young people show up to vote, proving the polls accurate?

“Ain’t that the question?” Kitchens said. “I think it’s close, but Obama has a bit of an edge.”

Tilley said the election “will come down to who has the best organization, who can motivate their base, turn out their voters and sway those undecideds.

“The good news on the Republican side is we’ve proven we do that pretty well,” he said.

But Tallahassee City Council member Allan Katz, an early Obama supporter, said the Obama campaign has changed the dynamics of Florida politics with its thousands of new registrants and by putting together the kind of turnout organization Florida Republicans have long had but Democrats never did.

“We have a very good chance of carrying Florida,” he said.

Judging by where he’s putting his money and his time, one person who believes him is Barack Obama.

WASHINGTON – Barack Obama is galloping away with the presidential race. Or maybe he has a modest lead. Or maybe he and John McCain are neck and neck.

Confusing? Sure, thanks to the dueling results of recent major polls.

In the past week, most surveys have shown Democrat Obama with a significant national lead over Republican McCain. Focusing on “likely voters” – as many polling organizations prefer this close to Election Day – an ABC News-Washington Post survey showed Obama leading by 11 percentage points. A Wall Street Journal-NBC News poll had the same margin, while the nonpartisan Pew Research Center gave Obama a 14-point edge.

But others had the race much closer. CNN-Opinion Research detected an Obama lead of 5 points. The George Washington University Battleground Poll had Obama up by 4 points. And an Associated Press-GfK poll showed Obama at 44 percent and McCain at 43 percent – in effect, a tie.

How can this be? Some questions and answers about why the polls differ.

Q: Don’t pollsters simply ask questions, tally the answers and report them?
 A: No. After finishing their interviews – usually with about 1,000 people, sometimes more – they adjust the answers to make sure they reflect Census Bureau data on the population like gender, age, education and race. For example, if the proportion of women interviewed is smaller than their actual share of the country’s population, their answers are given more “weight” to balance that out. But some pollsters make these adjustments differently than others. And while most polling organizations including the AP do not modify the responses to reflect some recent tally of how many Democrats, Republicans and independents there are, some do.

Q: Are those the only changes made?
A: No. As Election Day nears, polling organizations like to narrow their samples to people who say they are registered voters. They often narrow them further to those they consider likely voters. That’s because in a country where barely more than half of eligible voters usually show up for presidential elections, pollsters want their polls to reflect the views of those likeliest to vote.

Q: Is that hard to do?
A: Quite hard, since no one will truly know who will vote on Election Day until that day is over. In fact, virtually every polling organization has its own way of determining who likely voters are.

Like many polling organizations, the AP asks several questions about how often people have voted in the past and how likely they are to vote this year, and those who score highest are considered likely voters.

Q: Why is this such a problem?
A: Because nobody is 100 percent sure how to do this properly. And the challenge is being compounded this year because many think Obama’s candidacy could spark higher turnout than usual from certain voters, including young voters and minorities. The question pollsters face is whether, and how, to adjust their tests for likely voters to reflect this.

In identifying likely voters, the AP does not build in an assumption of higher turnout by blacks or young voters. Pew Director Andrew Kohut says that reflecting exceptionally heavy African-American turnout in the Democratic primaries, Pew’s model of likely voters now shows blacks as 12 percent of voters, compared to 9 percent in 2004.
 
Underscoring the uncertainty, the Gallup Poll is using two versions of likely voters this year – a traditional one that asks about peoples’ past voting behavior and their current voting intentions; and an expanded one that only looks at how intent they are on voting this year, which would tend to include more new
voters.

Q: What else might cause differences?
A: The groups pollsters randomly choose to interview are bound to differ from each other, and sometimes do significantly.
 
Every poll has a margin of sampling error, usually around 3 percentage points for 1,000 people. That means the results of a poll of 1,000 people should fall within 3 points of the results you would expect had the pollster instead interviewed the entire population of the U.S. But – and this is important – the results
are expected to be that accurate only 95 percent of the time. That means that one time in 20, pollsters expect to interview a group whose views are not that close to the overall population’s views.

Q: Are the differences among polls this year that unusual?
A: Not wildly, but that doesn’t make them less noticeable. There’s a big difference between a race that’s tied in the AP poll, and Pew’s 14-point Obama lead. But because of each poll’s margin of error, those differences may be a bit less – or more – than meet the eye.
 
That’s because each poll’s margin of sampling error should really be applied to the support for each candidate, not the gap between them.

Take the AP poll, which has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points. Obama’s 44 percent support is likely between 48 percent and 40 percent. McCain’s 43 percent is probably between 47 percent and 39 percent.

When support for candidates is measured in ranges like that, some polls’ findings could overlap – or grow worse.

Q: Are people always willing to tell pollsters who they’re supporting for president?
A: No, and that’s another possible source of discrepancies. Some polling organizations gently prod people who initially say they’re undecided for a presidential preference, others do it more vigorously. The AP’s poll, for example, found 9 percent of likely voters were undecided, while the ABC-Post survey had 2 percent.

RALEIGH, N.C. – All of a sudden, North Carolina matters.

It hasn’t for decades in presidential elections.

Then Democrat Barack Obama made an aggressive play for this traditionally GOP state and polls showed the race tightening. That forced Republican John McCain to defend his turf or risk ceding the southern state – and its 15 electoral votes – to Democrats for the first time in 32 years.

Now, just seven weeks before the election, North Carolina has become a general-election battleground, one of 13 states where both candidates are competing with television commercials and campaign staff on the ground.

“They clearly see the threat,” Obama campaign manager David Plouffe said after McCain’s campaign intensified its efforts here. “They can profess that they’re not concerned. But their spending and their actions belie” that.

Steve Schmidt, McCain’s chief strategist, insists the campaign is unconcerned: “It’s just one more state where the Obama campaign has allowed its hubris to dictate spending decisions. John McCain will win North Carolina and soon you will see the Obama camp withdraw from North Carolina like you have seen them withdraw from other states.”

Public polling shows a competitive race, though private surveys for both Republicans and Democrats give McCain an edge of anywhere from 3 to 8 percentage points.

The challenge for Obama may have increased after McCain selected Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate, a choice that has energized conservatives. At a recent Republican gathering in Cary for veterans, the mere mention of Palin’s name drew thunderous applause while McCain’s name elicited a tepid response.

“I’m not that thrilled about McCain,” said James Arscott, 66, a National Guard veteran and a Republican. “That is, I wasn’t thrilled about McCain until Sarah Palin came about.”

Even Democratic loyalists acknowledge that it is difficult to imagine North Carolina voting for Obama, who would be the country’s first black president.

“I would be stunned,” said Tim Rohde, 51, a Democrat from Raleigh. “But it would be amazing.”

It takes 270 electoral votes to claim the White House.

Typically, candidates compete for them in upward of two dozen states early in a general election only to see those that historically aren’t swing states drop out of contention by the fall.

The opposite has occurred with North Carolina. Look no further than the state’s population spurt – and its origins – to understand why Obama thinks he has a shot this year, and why McCain isn’t taking it for granted.

The state has seen steady growth over the past four years as transplants from the more liberal Northeast were drawn to the region for jobs.

White-collar workers have poured into Charlotte’s financial hub in the south, while recent college graduates and their young families have been drawn to plentiful jobs and quality education in the academic Research Triangle encompassing Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill. Retirees concerned about health care and the environment have settled on both sides of the state, from the eastern coastline to the western mountains.

“We’re a state that’s changing, and we’re a state that’s growing,” said Paul Shumaker, a Republican consultant based in Granite Falls. “Everyone has to realize and take into account that we’re rapidly evolving.”

Added Gary Pearce, a Raleigh-based Democratic consultant: “We have a black man that we can seriously talk about winning North Carolina. That’s a huge change. The fact that he’s competitive here says it all.”

Voter registration rolls illustrate the shifting tide.

State Board of Elections records show that Democratic registrations have risen 7 percent since the start of 2008, while Republican registrations grew about 1 percent. There are now about 40 percent more Democrats than Republicans in North Carolina, although members of both state parties tend to be more conservative than their national counterparts. Registrations among blacks, a pivotal part of the Democratic base, are up almost 10 percent while white registrations are up 4 percent.

The number of registrations for voters who don’t claim a political party jumped 11 percent this year.

Democrats control the North Carolina governor’s office and have solid majorities in both legislative chambers. National races are different, though: Republicans have won the presidential vote for three decades and the GOP now holds both Senate seats.

Republican analysts express confidence that McCain will carry the state, and that rural blue-collar voters in the eastern flatlands and western mountains who typically vote Democratic in down-ballot races will come through in the end for the GOP nominee. These analysts recall how George W. Bush comfortably won the state twice, and how Democrats couldn’t win it even when John Edwards, then a North Carolina senator, was the vice presidential nominee in 2004.

Edwards did help shave a half-point off the GOP’s 13-point margin of victory from 2000. Democrats hope a confluence of factors will help them make even bigger inroads this time, perhaps erasing the GOP’s edge altogether. They say Obama’s spadework during his hard-fought primary race with Hillary Rodham Clinton established a large local volunteer network and served to register, and ultimately turn out, unprecedented numbers of black and young voters.

A new analysis by Public Policy Polling comparing the voting preferences of North Carolinians who were born here to those who have moved into the state provides evidence that the state could trend more Democratic, particularly at the federal level, in the coming election cycles.

“In its simplest form, the evidence shows that native North Carolinians are supporting Republican candidates for the major statewide offices this year, while migrants to the state are supporting Democrats,” PPP said.

Native NC | Non-Native NC
McCain 48, Obama 40 | Obama 46, McCain 41
Dole 42, Hagan 39 |  Hagan 47, Dole 35
McCrory 41, Perdue 41 | Perdue 46 McCrory 35

“For Barack Obama to win North Carolina this year it will probably take an exceptional turnout from black voters and young voters. Moving forward though the changing demographics of the state would seem to have the potential to make it one of those permanent swing states in Presidential elections. Older conservative Democrats who often vote Republican will continue to be replaced in the population by more liberal Democrats who consistently vote for their party’s candidates. There will likely also continue to be an influx of voters who identify with neither party but at least for this year are leaning more toward the Democratic side of the spectrum.”

Read More From the PPP on this issue.