I was just quickly looking at North Carolina early vote data. I hadn't planned on diarying this, but I thought some other people might be interested, so I am just throwing this together quickly.
Here is data from the North Carolina State Board of Elections, comparing turnout by race, party registration, and county in the 2008 Democratic primary and 2016 Democratic primary:
A few brief notes -— turnout is only very slightly down from 2008. Its racial composition and gender composition are basically the same as in 2008. But there has been an increase in registered unaffiliated voters.
You can interpret that in one of two ways, depending on who you support:
- If you support Sanders, that's good for him because it suggests that NC (at least in early voting) may not have significantly lower turnout than in 2008. In other southern states there was lower voter turnout and increased African American vote share from 2008 — so that suggests NC will be better for Sanders than other southern states like South Carolina.
- If you support Clinton, that’s good for her because African American turnout is large enough that she should win NC without much trouble, even if she probably won't do as well as she did in other southern states.
Turnout is up big time in Durham and Asheville. It is down in Charlotte, Greensboro, Winston Salem, and Fayetteville. It’s up slightly in Orange County (University of North Carolina) and up notably more in Watauga County (Appalachian State University).
White turnout and independent turnout are up in Raleigh-Durham. African American turnout is more likely to be up in rural areas and smaller towns than in cities (where it tends to be down slightly, in Raleigh, Charlotte, Greensboro, Winston Salem, and Fayetteville).
And here’s the age distribution. It’s 12% age 18-29. I don't have 2008 data for direct comparison, but that doesn't seem to me to be too bad considering that it is early vote and election day voting usually skews younger. Note that turnout is higher among the youngest age 18-29s (college students) than among slightly older people. Then it starts going up again at around age 40, and peaks at around age 70:
So make of it what you will!