North Carolina election news: Live updates on Oct. 26
We’re tracking the latest elections news in North Carolina as Nov. 3 nears. Check back for updates.
Campaign stops in NC
Vice President Mike Pence spoke Sunday evening in Kinston — the first of several campaign stops in the Tar Heel state this week.
During the speech, Pence said he believes the upcoming election will decide “whether America remains America” and talked about Amy Coney Barrett, President Donald Trump’s nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court, whom the Senate is set to vote to confirm Monday.
The vice president, however, did not address the COVID-19 outbreak among his staff.
News broke late Saturday that five of his advisers, including his chief of staff Marc Short, tested positive for the virus. Pence and his wife, Karen, have tested negative.
“With one week left of early in-person voting in North Carolina, Vice President Mike Pence is making a last-ditch effort to distract from the Trump administration’s utter failure to address the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting economic fallout,” Kate Bedingfield, a spokeswoman for Democratic nominee Joe Biden’s campaign, wrote in a statement about the Sunday speech.
Pence’s speech came the day after Trump held a campaign rally in Robeson County and touted his recently announced support for recognition of the Lumbee Tribe, the largest Native American nation in North Carolina. Biden announced his support weeks earlier.
Karen Pence stopped in New Hill on Monday, and the vice president will visit North Carolina again Tuesday with stops at Wilmington International Airport and Greensboro’s Piedmont Triad International Airport.
Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris’ husband, Douglas Emhoff, will visit North Carolina on Monday, with stops in Boone and Winston-Salem.
Battle over ballot deadline
Fourteen states and the District of Columbia have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold North Carolina’s extension on the deadline to receive absentee ballots, N.C. Insider reports.
The state’s law allows ballots postmarked by Nov. 3 to be counted until Nov. 6. But the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last week ruled in favor of a policy change from the N.C. Board of Elections that allows ballots to be accepted through Nov. 12.
More North Carolinians are expected to vote by mail this election due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Now, the case is headed to the high court, which could act this week.
Attorneys general from the other states have looked to file briefs on the lawsuit before the court as they’re concerned blocking the deadline extension will limit their flexibility to make similar changes.
“More than a third of states and the District of Columbia had such deadlines before this election, consistent with the notion that all ballots cast on or before Election Day should be counted,” the brief says. “Prohibiting North Carolina from reasonably responding to the public health crisis and USPS emergencies by extending its deadline to receive timely mailed ballots would be a remarkable intrusion into states’ traditional prerogatives.”
Early voting numbers
As of Sunday, more than 3.1 million North Carolinians had voted in the 2020 election — including 2.3 million who voted in-person and 778,000 by mail.
Ten days into early voting, the state is already outpacing its 2016 numbers. At this point four years ago, about about 1.6 million ballots had been returned.
About 42% of eligible voters in North Carolina have cast their ballots, N.C. Insider reports.
North Carolina is also among the key states leading the country in voter turnout among young people.
Across the state, 204,986 people ages 18-29 cast their early ballots as of Oct. 21, according to the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning & Engagement, or CIRCLE, a non-partisan research organization tracking young-voter data.
That puts North Carolina at No. 3, behind Texas and Florida, among 14 key states that CIRCLE says could determine the outcome of the presidency and control of the U.S. Senate.
In 2016, more than 714,000 people ages 18-29 in the state ended up voting in the election won by President Donald Trump.
Early voting numbers are also breaking records nationally. As of Monday, more than 60 million Americans had voted early, according to the U.S. Elections Project.
In North Carolina, early voting ends in less than a week and officials urge residents to vote as early as possible.
Voter registration gains
North Carolina has seen a net gain of nearly 150,000 Republican registrations compared to a net gain of 96,000 Democratic registrations this year, The Charlotte Observer reports.
But unaffiliated registrations saw the largest net gain, at 193,000.
“To me the big takeaway from all of this is Unaffiliated is the big winner,” Chris Cooper, a political scientist at Western Carolina University, told The Observer. “You can get into a geek fight about the definition of a new registrant versus a changing electorate. But the real winner is unaffiliated.”
Republican registrations in 2020 outpaced Democratic registrations in almost all 100 counties, with the exception of urban counties.
Overall, however, the state’s electorate is divided into almost thirds: Democrats make up 35.6% of registered voters; unaffiliated voters 33.4%; Republicans 30.2%.
Where the polls stand
Trump/Biden: FiveThirtyEight’s average shows Biden with a 2.5-point lead over Trump in North Carolina. Biden currently has a 65% chance of victory, according to FiveThirtyEight, which means he is just “slightly favored” to win.
The poll analysis site gives North Carolina a 6.1% chance of being the “tipping point,” or the state that puts either Trump or Biden over the edge in the Electoral College. Only four states — Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Florida and Michigan — have a greater chance.
Tillis/Cunningham: A YouGov poll of 1,022 likely voters added to FiveThirtyEight’s list Sunday shows Democratic challenger Cal Cunningham leading Republican U.S. Sen Thom Tillis by 6 percentage points at a margin of error of plus or minus 4.1 percentage points.
Cooper/Forest: A Meredith College poll of 732 likely voters added Friday found Gov. Roy Cooper up 15 points over Republican challenger Dan Forest at a confidence interval of 2.7 percentage points.
What else you need to know
▪ Amy Coney Barrett confirmation expected Monday
▪ Who won the presidential debate? Polls show what Americans think of Trump, Biden
▪ ‘Essential worker’ Pence stays on campaign trail after COVID-19 outbreak on his staff
▪ US ‘not going to control’ COVID-19 pandemic, White House Chief of Staff Meadows says
This story was originally published October 26, 2020 at 10:08 AM.
