US Elections

Swing state preview: North Carolina

By Luke Freedman in Sydney, Australia

28 June 2012

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Well I thought I had figured out the alphabet after my earlier gaffe but I somehow managed to do it again and write up Ohio before North Carolina. Luckily, I caught my mistake before posting it so no one ever had to know. However, I just told you so now you know anyway. In any case, let’s talk about North Carolina.

Team Obama pretty much ran the perfect campaign here in 2008, registering scores of new African-American voters and working hard to turn out young voters and especially college students. Their hard work payed off as Obama pulled out a narrow victory in a state that Democrats had pretty much written off at the presidential level after Southern realignment. This strategy, emphasising mobilisation rather than persuasion, was ideally suited for a state like North Carolina. Nate Silver explains:

"[North Carolina] has quite a few African-American voters, who are almost sure to vote for Mr. Obama. But it also has plenty of rural white Southerners, many of them evangelical conservatives, who almost certainly won’t. To a lesser extent, it also has some highly educated and very liberal white voters in the Research Triangle, who are also quite likely to be Obama voters. That doesn’t leave very many voters left over."

The problem for Democrats is that mobilisation requires a well coordinated ground game featuring a bunch of enthusiastic volunteers. The 2008 election was excellent for this as the Obama campaign stirred up a lot of excitement and passion amongst younger Americans. Yeah, a lot of these kids are going to vote for him again. But are undergrads still going to feel motivated to go knock doors on a rainy October morning while still hungover from last night's frat party?

Obama also isn't getting any favours from the state Democratic Party. The current Democratic governor is unpopular and a former staffer is accusing party members of covering up a sexual harassment allegation against a high level party official.

It's not all bad news for liberals though. The 2010 Census shows a state with an increasingly large minority population and continual migration from the Northeast. These trends should at least partially offset the tougher political climate that Democrats face this time around. Romney is the favourite in 2012 but it's by no means prohibitive. However, if Obama does claim the state's 15 electoral votes it will likely be extraneous, as 270 will already be in his rear-view mirror.

Tags: Election 2012, North Carolina, Swing State Preview

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