Analysis: GOP voter enthusiasm slips in NC as Democrats hold steady

North Carolinians who identify as Republican have grown less certain whether they will cast a ballot in the November midterm election, while Democrats have held steady, according to a new analysis of the June Catawba College–YouGov survey.

The share of Republicans who said they were absolutely certain to vote on Nov. 3 dropped 9 points between March and June. That’s the first time this year the two parties have meaningfully diverged on the measure. Democrats ticked up slightly over the same stretch, from 62% to 64%. Independents recovered to 51%, matching their January level after a 7-point slide in the spring.

The breakdown comes from Michael Bitzer, director of Catawba College’s Center for North Carolina Politics & Public Service, who published it July 27 in the center’s Substack newsletter. The analysis draws on data from the survey Catawba released in June rather than new polling.

“The June survey marks the first point this year at which Republicans and Democrats have meaningfully diverged in their certainty about voting — and the direction of that movement favors Democrats,” Bitzer wrote.

In each of this year’s Catawba surveys, respondents were asked to rate their likelihood of voting in November on a scale of zero to 10, with zero meaning absolutely certain not to vote and 10 meaning absolutely certain to vote. Republicans and Democrats posted nearly identical shares, picking 10 in both January and March. Overall, 55% of North Carolinians said in June they were absolutely certain to vote.

The gap already shows up in the state’s open US Senate race. Seven in 10 voters backing former Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper said they were absolutely certain to vote, compared to 63% of those supporting former Republican National Committee chairman Michael Whatley. A plurality of undecided voters, 44%, fell into the lowest likelihood category. Cooper led Whatley 48% to 34% in the same Catawba survey, Carolina Journal reported in June. 

The softest Republican support sits among voters least attached to the party. Asked to place themselves on a seven-point scale running from strong Democrat to strong Republican, only 37% of those calling themselves “not very strong” Republicans said they were absolutely certain to vote — down from half in March. 

Nearly a third of that group landed in the middle of the scale, the “maybe” range. Strong Republicans dropped from roughly two-thirds in March to 58% in June.

Republican-leaning independents moved the other way, rising from 52% to 62%. On the Democratic side, strong Democrats dipped slightly while both not-very-strong Democrats and Democratic leaners posted gains.

Bitzer cautioned that neither Republican subgroup decline is large enough to be statistically meaningful on its own, given the smaller number of respondents in each. Only the drop among Republicans overall clears that bar.

“The data do not allow us to conclude with confidence that the decline occurred within each individual Republican subgroup,” he wrote. “But taken together, the Republican electorate shows a statistically significant decline in the share saying they are absolutely certain to vote from March to June.”

The pattern is a familiar one in midterm years, said Andy Jackson, director of the Civitas Center for Public Integrity at the John Locke Foundation, which publishes Carolina Journal.

“Those numbers are not surprising and are one of the reasons the president’s party tends to suffer in midterm elections,” Jackson said. “Midterms are relatively low-turnout affairs, and it takes more to motivate voters. Fear and loathing are strong motivators, and Democrats have more of that turnout fuel at their disposal right now.”

Republicans have tools to close the gap, he added, though they come with limits.

“Republicans will try to raise the anger level of their voters through attack ads and attempts to link local Democrats with extremist national Democrats like Michigan’s Abdul El-Sayed,” Jackson said. “It sometimes works for motivating your voters, but rarely as well as being the party out of power.”

El-Sayed, a former Detroit health director aligned with the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, faces US Rep. Haley Stevens in Michigan’s Aug. 4 Democratic Senate primary.

Bitzer also offered some caution about the conclusions overall. Campaign advertising, debates, organization, national events, and developments in the Trump administration could all shift voters’ motivation in either direction before November, he wrote, and saying you will vote is not the same as voting.

“The old political saying that elections are decided by ‘who shows up’ may be especially relevant in North Carolina this November,” he wrote.

The online survey of 1,000 North Carolina residents age 18 and older — not registered or likely voters — was conducted by YouGov June 1–10. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.83 percentage points.

“Analysis: GOP voter enthusiasm slips in NC as Democrats hold steady” was originally published on www.carolinajournal.com.