New voter surge favors Democrats

RALEIGH -- From Hillsborough to Selma, the Triangle is turning bluer.

John McCain got nearly 6,000 more votes in Wake County on Tuesday than George W. Bush did four years ago. Even so, Barack Obama crushed McCain on the same turf -- flipping Wake from red to blue with the help of independents and more than 47,000 newly registered Democrats.

Cary resident Nancy Anderson was a life-long Republican until this year, when she switched her party affiliation and voted for Obama.

"It was the candidate," said Anderson, 58. "He's got a mix of pastor, parent and statesman. [The Republicans] probably won't win my vote back."

In heavily Democratic Durham and Orange counties, there are now about 7,500 fewer registered Republicans than in 2004, though the total number of voters has grown.

"I think people moving into the area are more cosmopolitan, more sophisticated," said Amy Ford, 40, of Chapel Hill. "I was hoping Obama could pull off a win here -- but when he did, I was surprised."

Even in Johnston County, where the GOP still rules, this week's electoral results show Democrats gaining.

All told, Obama beat McCain by 15 percentage points across five Triangle counties -- Wake, Durham, Orange, Chatham and Johnston -- a decisive margin that helped him become the first Democrat since Jimmy Carter, in 1976, to carry North Carolina.

Farther down Tuesday's ballot, candidates such as newly elected Wake commissioner Stan Norwalk rode a wave of Obama-inspired straight-ticket voters, giving Democrats control of the county board for the first time in six years.

Durham resident Jenny Peters, who grew up in St. Louis, updated her Facebook page online this week to proclaim that she now lives in a blue state.

A friend from Missouri -- where the presidential tally remains too close to call but leans toward McCain -- replied in a text message, "Don't rub it in."

"I think it's a fundamental change in the population of the state, more so than a change in the people who are already here," said Peters, 45. "And that will feed on itself, because people who wouldn't have wanted to move to North Carolina because it's so conservative would possibly want to move here now."

Trouble ahead for GOP?

The trend has some Republicans worried. Tom Beaird, 57, a life-long GOP voter from Holly Springs, longs for the days when steadfastly conservative candidates were reliable winners.

He fears that even a Republican icon like the late U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms couldn't be elected now, as the state and the Triangle become more urban and culturally diverse.

"Southern white males, they don't enjoy the status they once did," Beaird said. "I fit that mold -- and I'm on the outside looking in."

Though it is true that minority voters turned out in high numbers and many new arrivals appear to have voted for Obama, an analysis of the results across the five counties suggests that many Triangle residents who supported Bush in 2004 didn't vote for McCain in 2008.

Wake's dramatic turn

In Wake County, at least 11 precincts that went for Bush in 2004 appear to have gone for Obama this year. As the ballots of early voters are added to the precinct-by-precinct totals by elections officials in the coming weeks, even more of Wake County is likely to turn blue.

One such precinct votes at Brier Creek Community Center in northwest Raleigh, which voted heavily for Bush four years ago. On Tuesday, it went for Obama.

Beverly Vollat, who lives near Brier Creek Country Club, said she switched from Republican to Democrat when she and her husband relocated from Ohio in January.