While black voters could play a vital role in some of the races on this year’s ballot, current data shows black voters underperforming compared to 2020 numbers.
The early vote totals for black voters has dropped by more than 40,000 versus 2020, according to an analysis from Dr. Michael Bitzer, chair of political science and director of the Center for North Carolina Politics and Public Service and Catawba College.
On Oct 29, 2024, black non-Hispanic voters in North Carolina were 44,000 votes behind same-day totals in 2020, an improvement from the 54,000 deficit on Monday, according to an X post by Dr. Bitzer.
During the 2020 election, 92% of black non-Hispanic voters cast their ballots for Biden, according to the Pew Research Center.
North Carolina, one of an eight states grouping that contains approximately half of the nation’s black voters, has about 1.8 million eligible black voters. The black vote is projected to account for about 14% of eligible voters in this election, up from the 2020 election, when they accounted for about 13.5%.
Despite the fact that the number of eligible black voters is up by half a percent, turnout among black voters is down considerably from the 2020 election.
So far, black voting numbers are merely 50% of the total from the 2020 election, with early voting ending this week ahead of the Election Day next Tuesday (901,673 in 2020 vs 2024 current count of 543, 296).
An analysis of Mecklenburg County, a very blue pocket in the Tar Heel State and one of the largest metropolitan voter pools, shows the black vote was 144,591 in 2020; only 85,919 have voted so far in 2024.
The drop off could have an outsized impact in North Carolina’s only true toss-up congressional race — the battle for Congressional District 1 between incumbent Democrat Rep. Don Davis, and Republican challenger Laurie Buckhout, where black voters have one of the highest vote shares in the state.
During the 2020 election, the black vote in CD-1 totaled more than 125,000. Comparing numbers in 2024 to same-day tallies in 2020, the black vote is nearly 25,000 votes shy of where it was at this point last cycle, 74,000 and 98,000 votes respectively.
While the first congressional district is a historic stronghold for Democrats, currently represented by an incumbent Democrat, Rep. Don Davis, the voters are more socially conservative than Democratic counterparts in other parts of the state, and recent election results trends show the Democratic advantage lessening.
Unlike young voter trends, trends for race voter turnout typically follow state turnout trends. According to Jim Stirling, a research fellow at the John Locke Foundation, this means black voter turnout is unlikely to catch up with 2020 turnout numbers unless there is a “sudden and dramatic shift in this last week of early voting.”