Little Watauga, Running With the Big Dogs

Hattip to Gerry Cohen, who keeps up with this stuff:

New voter registrations in various NC counties the past month (generally Aug 3 - Sept 2)

Wake 11,236
D 30.1%
L 1.0%
R 15.8%
U 53.2%

Orange 3,442
D 36.3%
L 1.1%
R 8.1%
U 54.5%

Durham 3,508
D 45.8%
L 0.6%
R 8.4%
U 45.3%

Mecklenburg 7,690
D 41.0%
L 1.3%
R 17.1%
U 40.5%

Buncombe 1,984
D 35.1%
L 1.8%
R 13.6%
U 49.5%

Guilford 3,532
D 40.4%
L 1.1%
R 14.1%
U 44.4%

Forsyth 2,383
D 39.2%
L 1.1%
R 17.1%
U 42.6%

Watauga 2,363
D 24.7%
L 2.1%
R 21.6%
U 51.5%

How To Stop College Students from Voting: Penalize Their Parents

Another Day-After-April-Fools joke from the Republicans in the North Carolina General Assembly ... a new proposed law to take away parents' rights to list college students as dependents if those same students should dare to register to vote where they're in school.

I ain't kiddin'.

Laura Leslie points out that this law is really aimed squarely at Watauga and Orange counties.

And if that doesn't do enough to eliminate the youth vote, then another provision in the bill should:

The bill would also require voters to have their vehicles registered at the same address as their voter registration. That could also cut down on college student registration, since many students maintain their vehicle registration in their home counties.

Why don't the Republicans just go ahead and pass a single omnibus law that says, once and for all, that only registered Republicans who pass the "Are You Sufficiently Conservative Test?" are allowed to vote in the state of North Carolina.

They obviously realize that they can't win on their merits. They can only stay in power by illegitimate manipulation of ballot access and outright voter suppression.

Deadman's Curve

"Obviously, these are not good numbers for the party to be looking at."

--Former Republican Congressman Dick Armey, on registration trends in 26 states ... away from the Republican brand

In 26 states and the District of Columbia where voter registration data by party are available, a study of those data by the New York Times reveals that since 2004 the total number of registered Democrats increased by net 214,656, while the number of Republicans fell by 1,407,971. While Democratic registrations increased in 15 states since 2004, the "independent" or "unaffiliated" designations swelled even more. Republican registrations grew in Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Kentucky -- very slightly -- which makes those three states fairly unique states of mind.

" 'This is very suggestive that there is a fundamental change going on in the electorate,' said Michael P. McDonald, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and an associate professor of political science at George Mason University who has studied voting patterns."

Where is North Carolina in this study? Although Democratic registrations have shot up statewide, North Carolina, along with Arizona and Colorado, has seen huge bumps in "unaffiliated" registrations, so that "nonpartisan voters essentially constitute a third party." That's actually been the case in Watauga County for some time now, where Republicans outnumber Democrats by a significant margin but where unaffiliated voters hold the balance of power. They have not been tilting toward the Republican Party for the last several election cycles.

Current voter registration by party in Watauga County:

Democrat 12,777
Republican 14,354
Libertarian 9
Unaffiliated 11,510

Statewide totals:

Democrat 2,669,616
Republican 1,937,735
Libertarian 512
Unaffiliated 1,282,698