North Carolina’s March 2026 primaries saw Democrats lead statewide turnout, with unaffiliated voters coming in second and Republicans coming in third. In addition to the higher vote among those registered Democrat, unaffiliated voters also chose to participate in the Democratic primaries than the Republican ones.
Total turnout data compiled by the John Locke Foundation Vote Tracker shows registered Democrats led participation in the primary election with 297,985 ballots cast, compared with 216,776 ballots cast by unaffiliated voters and 200,596 ballots cast by Republicans. When including unaffiliated voters, who can choose to vote in whichever partisan primary they choose, there was a total of 419,224 Democratic ballots and only 295,805 Republican ballots cast.
The tracker aggregates election data from the North Carolina State Board of Elections and includes ballots requested and cast during the statewide primary.
North Carolina operates under a semi-closed primary system. Voters registered with a political party can vote only in their party’s primary, while unaffiliated voters are allowed to choose either a Republican or Democratic ballot.
Over the past decade, the number of voters registered as unaffiliated has steadily increased, and unaffiliated voters now outnumber both Democrats and Republicans individually in statewide registration totals.
Data from the tracker indicates that unaffiliated voters broke heavily toward Democratic ballots during the March primaries. Of the 216,776 unaffiliated voters who cast ballots, 121,239 (55.9%) chose a Democratic ballot while 94,849 (43.8%) cast a Republican ballot.
Mitch Kokai, senior political analyst at the John Locke Foundation, cautions against reading too much into the partisan split among unaffiliated voters in a single primary election.
“It’s unwise to read too much into the partisan breakdown of unaffiliated votes in primary elections,” said Kokai. “Hotly contested local or regional elections can skew the statewide numbers. Yet Democrats are likely happy to see that more unaffiliated voters chose their primaries. That could signal stronger enthusiasm on the Democratic side as the election year moves forward.”
Since the 2010 primaries, unaffiliated voters have consistently requested more Republican ballots in every primary election cycle. This year’s shift, with unaffiliated voters participating more in the Democratic primary, marks a notable departure from that long-standing pattern.
In the most recent primary in 2024, for example, 199,005 unaffiliated voters requested 128,099 (64.4%) Republican ballots compared with 69,610 (35.0%) Democratic ballots.
Primary turnout often reflects enthusiasm among each party’s base voters, but the choices made by unaffiliated voters can also provide insight into broader voter engagement and which contests are drawing the most interest.
Andy Jackson, director of the John Locke Foundation’s Civitas Center for Public Integrity, says demographic changes among unaffiliated voters may be helping drive the shift seen in this year’s primaries.
“With younger voters, who tend to vote Democratic, increasingly registering as unaffiliated, I am not surprised that unaffiliated voters as a whole are more Democratic-leaning than they were,” said Jackson. “That trend at least partially offsets the decline in registered Democrats in North Carolina. That trend will likely continue as long as younger voters disproportionately register as unaffiliated.”
Kokai believes broader political trends may also help explain why Democratic primaries attracted more participation this year.
“After a party switch in the White House, the president’s party tends to fare poorly in the next midterm,” Kokai added. “That historical trend lines up pretty well with the prediction of stronger enthusiasm among Democrats in 2026. Whether that enthusiasm lasts for another eight months is an open question. It’s even less clear that these numbers say anything about 2028 or beyond.”