Unaffiliated voters pass Republicans in NC, but no reason for Dems to celebrate

News this week that the number of unaffiliated voters in North Carolina passed the number of registered Republicans in the state for the first time has some symbolic significance.

But, it says less about the strength of the Republican Party in North Carolina than you might think.

Figures from the State Board of Elections put the number of unaffiliateds at 2,056,294, about 500 voters ahead of the total for Republicans. Democrats still have the largest single share of registered voters with 2.6 million, or 38.9 percent.

So why wouldn't Democrats view this as a big blow to their rivals? And, as the share of voters not officially aligned with either party grows rapidly, why do our politics and government seem as polarized as ever?

Here's the party pooper for Dems: The figures show the number of registered Democrats in the state dropped by nearly 130,000 over the past five years, while the number of Republicans increased by more than 26,000.

There are more registered Democrats in the state now than there were 10 years ago, when the figure was 2.5 million, but the number of Republicans has grown faster.

Michael Bitzer, a political science professor at Catawba College who watches the numbers closely, wrote that the rise of independent voters is primarily a reflection of the increased share millennials (those born in 1981 and after) make up of the state's electorate.

Forty percent of millennials are unaffiliated compared with 19 percent of those born before 1945. As older North Carolinians die and millennials make up a higher percentage of the state's electorate, the percentage of unaffiliated voters will rise too. The parties' decisions to open their primaries to unaffiliated voters can only add to the trend.

This trend will have some practical implications over time. It is harder to justify the significant barriers an unaffiliated candidate has to clear to get his or her name on the ballot when the number of independent voters exceeds the number in one of the two major parties. In fact, the General Assembly discussed this year legislation to make it easier for independent candidates to run, though it has yet to pass.

Control of the election machinery by members of the two major parties only is also harder to defend given the rise of the unaffiliated voter. But, there are no unaffiliated members of the legislature and it may be some time before the General Assembly decides to give unaffiliateds more say over questions like how many early voting sites a county should have.

The increase in unaffiliated voters has not, as the composition of the legislature suggests, led to the election of large numbers of officials who are not members of a political party.

Unaffiliated candidates have to build a campaign infrastructure from scratch while Democrats and Republicans have party activists waiting to help. At least as importantly, many voters regularly align with one or the other of the parties despite the absence of a "D" or "R" next to their name on the voting rolls.

As Bitzer wrote: "Being unaffiliated in registration does not mean you are politically independent. In fact, self-identifying as a political independent does not mean you aren't partisan either."

He puts the national percentage of people who truly do not align with one party or the other – "independent independents" is the term – at about 10 to 15 percent of the presidential electorate.

Political scientists cited by columnist Thomas Edsall in The New York Times take that analysis one step further, saying many Americans identify more with the political "team" they support at the ballot box than they do with the ideas their party or its candidates espouse.

Edsall says that helps explain why core supporters of President Donald Trump give him such high marks even if he deviates from Republican stances on issues and excuse or ignore personal conduct by Trump that they would not tolerate from a Democrat.

In a 2011 national survey, 61 percent of white evangelical Protestants said a politician who had committed an immoral act in their private life could not fulfill their duties ethically in a public position.

In October 2016, with Trump running for president, only 20 percent of the same types of voters said they felt the same way. Seventy-two percent said someone who was unethical in their private life could behave ethically in the public sphere.

The studies Edsall cites looked primarily at Republican voting behavior. One political scientist he quoted did say so-called tribalism or "identity politics" is more pronounced among Republicans than Democrats.

But, there is little doubt that the same tendencies exist among Democratic voters too.

Even if they are officially unaffiliated.

Buncombe trends

Changes in voter registration figures for Buncombe County are more favorable to Democrats in Buncombe County and less so for Republicans over the past 10 years than statewide, even though Democrats saw a decline in their numbers in the county over the last five years.

At 74,084, the number of registered Democrats in the county this month was up by more than 4,700 over the level in 2007. The number of Republicans fell by almost 3,000.

The number of unaffiliated voters, however, passed the Republican total several years ago. It appears to be on track to exceed the number of Democrats before too many years.

The split for registered voters in Buncombe now looks like this: Democrats, 39.1 percent; unaffiliated, 36.1 percent; Republicans, 24.1 percent; and Libertarians, 0.7 percent.