Throughout the 2024 election season, many politicians, pollsters and other public officials identified North Carolina as a crucial swing state. The state’s diverse electorate and history of split-ballot voting made it a focal point of national attention in the months and weeks leading up to Election Day, while polls consistently projected the state as a toss-up in the presidential race.
Following the unanimous certification of statewide election results by the N.C. State Board of Elections last Tuesday, The Chronicle completed a deep dive into official election results and exit poll data for insights into who made it to the polls this year and how their choices shaped the outcomes in national and statewide races.
Who voted in North Carolina?
Out of 7,763,502 eligible N.C. voters, 5,724,001 cast a ballot in the 2024 general election.
Voter turnout in North Carolina decreased from 75.35% in 2020 to 73.73% in 2024, despite a record number of early votes counted. Importantly, though, 2020 represents North Carolina’s highest voter turnout rate at least since 1972 — 2008, 2012 and 2016 all hovered around 69%.
Durham County reported an overall turnout rate of 62.2% in 2024, down from 67.5% in 2020. Out of 250,236 eligible voters this cycle, 145,767 voted in person either during the early voting period or on Election Day, and 9,767 submitted absentee ballots.
Nearly 74% of N.C. voters cast ballots during this year’s early voting period, compared to 65% in 2020. Early votes were more evenly split along party lines this year — 1.46 million Democrats to 1.49 million Republicans — while previously they were “reliably Democratic.”
The youth vote made a bigger impact in North Carolina this year than in many other states across the nation.
In an estimate from Tufts University’s Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, the national turnout rate for voters ages 18 to 29 decreased from 50% in 2020 to approximately 42% in 2024, similar to 2016 levels. Young people also made up a smaller share of the overall electorate at roughly 14%, compared to 17% in 2020 and 19% in 2016.
However, the study found no change in youth voter turnout in North Carolina and other swing states, which held steady around 50% — far above the national average.
This year’s election cycle also saw more young people casting their votes for Republicans than in previous years.
In the weeks leading up to the election, young N.C. Republicans had beat their 2020 turnout levels for early voting by 1,600 votes as of Oct. 28, while Democrats saw a drop of around 37,000 votes.
Later on, though, the youth vote’s overall trend leaned Democrat — but not to the extent many in the party had hoped for. As of Nov. 11, 51% of N.C. voters ages 18 to 29 were reported as voting for Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, compared to 46% who voted for Republican nominee Donald Trump. But this five-point margin represents a decrease from 2020’s 16-point margin favoring President Joe Biden.
The shift in North Carolina’s youth mirrors a national trend. While young voters were the age group most supportive of Harris in 2024 at 51%, this year’s four-point margin between the two major candidates represents a significant drop from Biden’s 25-point lead with youth voters over Trump in 2020.
Hurricane Helene was a main concern for N.C. election officials this year, who anticipated lower turnout in affected counties. Nevertheless, the swift adjustments in voting plans made by state officials and local administrators in the aftermath of the storm preceded higher turnout rates for many highly affected communities compared to the overall state average, though rates remained below 2020 levels.
That said, youth turnout rates in western N.C. communities may have actually decreased. Preliminary data collected by researchers including Gunther Peck, associate professor in the Sanford School of Public Policy, found that students at schools such as the University of North Carolina at Asheville voted at lower rates in 2024 than in previous years.
N.C. voters split ballots
Many North Carolinians split their vote across party lines for national and statewide races in 2024, a trend consistent with previous years.
At 11:18 p.m. on election night, the Associated Press declared Republican candidate Donald Trump’s victory over Democratic candidate Kamala Harris in North Carolina. Trump won with 50.8% of the vote, securing the state’s 16 electoral votes for the third consecutive presidential election.
Although official statistics on the breakdown of N.C. voters have not been released, according to exit polls, Trump’s share in North Carolina this year went down five percentage points among white voters and up five percentage points among Black voters compared to 2020. Black voters make up approximately 19.7% of the N.C. electorate — though they account for roughly 22.5% of the statewide population — and voted overwhelmingly Democratic in the presidential race at around 87%. White voters, on the other hand, compose 63.7% of the electorate — but 68.3% of the population — and favored Trump by around 61%.
Trump went down by eight percentage points among white women in the state, double the amount reported for white men. He also lost three percentage points among women voters in the state as a whole. The president-elect saw gains in support among voters ages 18 to 29, as well as all voters under 45, but losses among voters over 65.
Trump lost in Durham County, with Harris securing 79.85% of all votes.
Of the 14 N.C. seats in the U.S. House of Representatives — the only other federal races on the ballot for voters in the state — Republicans secured 10.
Comparatively, N.C. Attorney General Josh Stein, a Democrat, beat out Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, a Republican, for the position of governor with a final margin of nearly 15%. Democrats won six of North Carolina’s 10 Council of State races, with two seats flipping red and two seats flipping blue this election cycle.
Democrats are projected to break the Republican supermajority in the N.C. General Assembly, as the GOP retained its three-fifths majority in the state Senate, but appears to be one seat short of doing so in the state House.
So what could explain these glaring differences in national versus statewide elections in North Carolina? It may be that while residents of the Tar Heel state support Democrat-run state agencies, they feel ambivalent towards the implementation of left-leaning policies in Washington.
In the 1970s and ‘80s, split-ticket voting was far more common across the country than it is today, now occurring once every 10 ballots. However, North Carolina has consistently seen split ballots between presidential and governor’s races — electing a Democratic governor in eight of the last nine election cycles while at the same time swinging red in the presidential election eight out of nine times.
Some experts, including David McLennan, professor of political science at Raleigh’s Meredith College, have speculated that N.C. voters are anxious for change at the federal level but hesitant to vote for disruption at the state level. Others have pointed this year to the intense controversy surrounding Republican gubernatorial nominee Mark Robinson, who has long been a controversial figure in state politics for his extremist conservative views but also faced allegations late in the race of posting explicit and offensive messages on a pornographic message board, which may have contributed to a drop in support.
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