At first glance North Carolina might seem an unlikely battleground. This is, after all, where George W. Bush won a comfortable 12-point victory in 2004 despite the presence of a North Carolinian on the Democratic ticket; where twice as many voters said they were conservatives as said they were liberals; and where no Democratic Presidential candidate has won in thirty years.
But the past isn’t necessarily prologue in this fast-growing state, with its influx of urban, higher-income professionals of the sort Barack Obama tries to attract, and a recent surge in the voter rolls in Democratic areas. It could end up being one of the more interesting states to watch in 2008, and here are the key things, and areas, to look at:
Part I: The growth
It’s better to think in terms of numbers than percents in this case: George W. Bush won North Carolina by 436,000 votes - a fairly substantial sum. That means a vote swing of around 200,000 to the Democrats would make this a real battleground. So where could the Democrats find - or the Republicans lose - that many votes?
Obama would need to meld a strong African-American vote with upscale suburbanites. That would start with newer voters, and there are plenty of those. There are six million registered voters in North Carolina now, 500,000 more than in 2004 -- enough to make a difference.
The bulk of that change came in the run-up to the Democratic primary contest, since the summer of 2007, when the current Presidential race started heating up.
That advantaged the Democrats. The number of registered Democrats is 250,000 more than today than it was in summer 2007; the number of registered Republicans is only 60,000 higher, which makes for a pro-Democratic difference of 190,000 in that time. That gap, all by itself, is enough to make this state a battleground -- if they all turned out (as always, a big if) and they voted as their registration would indicate.
The geographical distribution of the registration change is as important as the numbers - and points us to important areas to watch. If the Democrats are going to gain votes anywhere, it will be first and foremost in the Raleigh-Durham area, with its relatively higher-income white professionals to whom Obama will try to appeal. go to CBS
