WRAL is reporting that by the end of the early voting period on Saturday nearly 950,000 people had voted in NC. While early data from the SBOE indicated a strong Republican turnout, it appears that Democrats made serious advances towards the end of the early voting period and now lead 46-36%. LINK at WRAL.com
About 46 percent of ballots cast have come from registered Democrats, while 36 percent are from registered Republicans. The advantage for Democrats has steadily widened since the first days of early voting began about two weeks ago, when Republicans were trailing by just a few percentage points.
This is about even with registration statistics for the state.
Democrats comprise 45 percent of all registered voters, while Republicans make up 32 percent. Unaffiliated voters have voted less frequently, submitting 17 percent of votes so far even though they make up 24 percent of all registered voters.
It appears that unaffiliated or independent voters are not showing up to the same degree and this seems to be a pattern seen in several states. Again, off years are really base election. The GOP spokesman tries to rain on the parade
some of the voters they targeted to get out early were Democrats who were leaning toward voting for the GOP, and he noted that Republicans performed better in early voting than years past.
Obviously, the work is not done and this certainly does not mean that we will get a Democratic Senator from NC, however, it is certainly encouraging and really speaks to the effectiveness of GOTV!!!!!! So Do It!!!!
Update: Link to PDF of Turnout stats that show that only 12% of Dems have vote so far compared to 14% for Rep. There are LOTS of votes out there to be gotten!!!!
ftp://www.app.sboe.state.nc.us/...