The 2024 Civitas Partisan Index (CPI) launched this week providing North Carolinians with insights on the electoral landscape ahead of the November general election.
The election data tracker for North Carolina’s legislative districts indicates 26 competitive House districts and 10 competitive Senate districts heading into the November general election, with possible outcomes ranging from Democratic majorities to Republican supermajorities.
The CPI compiles partisan tendencies across all 170 legislative districts to give North Carolinians an understanding of where each district falls along the political divide. The CPI score lists the party the district tends to favor, followed by a number indicating the relative lean of the district toward that party. The statewide baseline average for Republicans rose from 50.76% of the two-party vote in 2022, to 51.36% in 2024.
The baseline model is a highly reliable measure, said Dr. Andy Jackson, Director of the Civitas Center for Public Integrity. In the 2020 election cycle, the model accurately projected the results of all but one race.
However, it’s not a predictive model because factors such as candidate quality, incumbency, or funds raised are not factored into the calculation. Rather, the CPI can be used as a baseline when determining the general tendency of voters in a district to vote for one party or the other.
Republicans currently hold supermajorities in both the North Carolina House and Senate, which has enabled the legislative leaders to advance many priorities despite the objections of the Democrat governor. In 2024 those supermajorities are at risk in the general election, particularly the Senate.
senate side
With 50 seats in the North Carolina Senate, the CPI indicates there are 16 safe Democratic seats and 19 safe Republican seats. One seat is considered likely Democratic, while four are considered likely Republican. Five more seats lean Republican, leaving five true toss-up seats.
“Republicans start with 23 likely or safe seats in the Senate in a typical election year,” the analysis states. “They would need to pick up three Republican-leaning seats or toss-up seats to gain a majority. To get a super majority (the 30 votes needed to override a veto), Republicans would need to pick up all of the lean Republican seats and two of the five toss-up seats.”
The Civitas Center for Public Integrity provides an interactive map for users to view data trends district by district across North Carolina.
House Side
In the North Carolina House the CPI results suggest Democrats would need to sweep all three toss-up seats and win in 10 of the 17 Republican leaning districts to gain a majority.
With 120 total House seats in North Carolina, the index shows 37 seats are safely held by Democrats versus 39 safe seats for Republicans. Democrats get five more likely seats, to Republicans’ 13; six lean Democratic, 17 lean Republican; and, three are toss-ups.
2022 comparison
Senate Republicans gained two additional safe seats and three lean Republican seats when compared to the 2022 CPI. They did, however, lose one likely Republican seat. Democrats in the Senate gained two additional safe districts but lowered to only one likely district. In addition there are five toss-up districts this year as opposed to zero in 2022.
The House GOP has picked up 11 lean Republican seats while maintaining the number of safe and likely seats. Democrats have lost seats categorized as likely or lean but increase their safe seats by four.
Assessing the data, Center for Public Integrity research fellow Jim Stirling says, “It’s an uphill battle” for Republicans to hold on to the supermajority this fall.
The tracker’s methodology takes a rolling average of the ten Council of State races from 2020 and the 2022 statewide judicial races using data from the North Carolina State Board of Elections