by WorldTribune Staff, August 12, 2016

North Carolina went for Obama in 2012 and is considered a “tossup state” in the current election cycle, but Democrats are finding the actual numbers in voter registration troubling – and the left-leaning media may not be able to spin it away.

“While talking heads say North Carolina is going from a reliably red state to a purple or blue state, the reality on the ground in North Carolina actually looks different,” the Civitas Institute noted on Aug. 11.

The numbers show “a completely different picture of North Carolina than we are getting from the mainstream press. North Carolina has been moving away from its Democrat stronghold for years now, but with the explosion of the unaffiliated voter rolls and the outcome of the last three general elections, it’s a safe bet that the maps won’t be turning blue after this year’s November 8 election.”

Voter registration in the Tar Heel state is “trending more red – especially in down-ticket races,” the Civitas report said.

“While political consultants, candidates and the media would have you believe that North Carolina is becoming more of a toss-up state, voter registration numbers combined with past election results tell a different story – one that may not fully be told until the ballots are totaled up this November.”

Civitas noted that “in 2012, four years after then-Sen. Barack Obama won North Carolina by just over 14,000 votes, North Carolinians exercised their version of a ‘recall election’ and put Mitt Romney over the top with a nearly 100,000-vote edge. During the same election, North Carolina voters elected only the third Republican governor and second Republican lieutenant governor since Reconstruction and solidified the 2010 Republican victories in the legislature by giving both chambers veto-proof majorities. The 2010 victories were significant in themselves, as Republicans had never before held majorities in both chambers at the same time and only briefly held the majority in the House for four years, from 1995-1998.”

The 2010 victories also were won “in maps drawn by Democrats – not Republican-friendly maps.”

Civitas continued that “the changes in voter registration numbers since 2012 are surprising. Since July 2012, North Carolina has seen a net gain of 347,252 voters. Broken down by party (or non-party for that matter), the number of unaffiliated voters has grown by a whopping 361,575 voters, Democrats have a net loss of 72,919 voters, Republicans have added 44,198 voters, and the Libertarian Party has grown by 14,398 voters.”

Democrats, the Civitas report said, “have been losing ground in North Carolina since 1993, when the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) was signed into law by former President Bill Clinton.

Widely known as the “motor voter” law, it allowed people to register at the Department of Motor Vehicles when they got their drivers licenses and at other government agencies as well.

While Democrats claimed the NVRA was needed to make registering to vote easier and would open the process up to more people, in North Carolina it cleared the way for voters to register in parties other than the dominant Democrat Party.”

  2016 elections, voter trends in ‘tossup state’ North Carolina worry Democrats, WorldTribune.com