This is the fourth in a twice-weekly series of updates detailing pre-Election Day early voting turnout across North Carolina in near real time, employing State Board of Elections data. New installments appear here on the Insight(u)s Blog on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons through Nov. 8th.

Part 4: Turnout Trends Through 17 October 2016

North Carolina’s Republican Sinkhole Yawns Ever Wider

According to State Board of Elections data (Footnote 1), North Carolina Republicans’ Trump Slump continues unabated. Ballots cast through 17 October are down 18% from the corresponding period in 2012 (47,922 vs 58,404, respectively):





And once again, that deficit is entirely due to Republican ennui:

Tar Heel State Republicans are voting at just 60% of their 2012 rate, while Democrats are at 106% and unaffiliated voters are at 112%. Toting up the Republican ballot deficit plus the Democratic excess so far (compared to 2012’s performances) puts the hole Republican voters are digging at 13,616 votes, and still rising.

If that sounds inconsequential to you, take a moment to consider that in 2008 Obama/Biden edged out McCain/Palin by just 14,000 votes in North Carolina, for a surprise victory here. If Republican voters’ current turnout slump continues, by November 8th the term “Carolina Blue” – once merely a color – will have a whole new meaning.

Demographics? We Don’t Need No Stinking Demographics

Try as we may, we remain at a loss to find interesting cross-tabs in the data. Republicans’ Trump Slump spans all ages and genders:



Still, hidden in the gender data is one interesting and historically unprecedented observation. Women always out-vote men in North Carolina (as in the nation as a whole), and – as we keep reminding you – in normal years Republicans strongly outperform Democrats in absentee-by-mail voting (the only kind currently underway in NC). So in normal years Republican women post huge absentee-by-mail ballot numbers relative to Democratic women. But study the graph above carefully and you’ll notice that this year Republican women have actually fallen behind their Democratic sisters, 10,276 to 10,633 ballots, respectively.

Trump just isn’t grabbing the ladies like he used to.