Voting and voting early is the new craze in North Carolina – and in many other states around the county – and, at this rate, a very, very large percentage of the electorate will have voted by the time former President Donald Trump and current Vice President Kamala Harris make their closing arguments to the American people on Monday night, Nov. 4.

As of 8 a.m. Thursday, Oct. 24, over 2 million voters in North Carolina – a state with a population of 10.4 million – had cast ballots in the 2024 General Election, according to preliminary numbers just released by the NC State Board of Elections.

One local election expert said he believes the high voter turnout favors Trump and the Republicans.

“If people were staying home, it would be the Republicans who were not going to vote for Trump,” he said.

Traditionally, in US elections, higher voter turnout has tended to favor Democrats since some Democratic-leaning voter sectors are often less likely to turn out to vote. When turnout is high, it often includes more of those lower-propensity voters who tend to vote for Democrats.

However, the presidential election of 2024 is unlike any other election before it, and some recent data trends suggest that, for this November at least, higher turnout is likely to favor Trump and other Republican candidates.

The ballots cast so far in North Carolina already represent a turnout of about 26 percent of the state’s roughly 7.8 million registered voters.

Here’s the breakdown of the voting methods being used by the 2,015,754 voters who had voted by late this week:

  • In-person early voting: 1,895,314
  • Absentee (civilian): 103,945
  • Absentee (overseas): 12,974
  • Absentee (military): 3,521

Election officials note that the numbers may be slightly lower than the actual turnout since there’s a lag between the time voters cast their ballots and the time at which county boards of elections across North Carolina upload the relative data to the State Board’s system.

So, the actual number of voters is higher than reported.

Election officials add, “Through the end of the day Wednesday, nearly 1,888,000 voters had cast ballots in person during the first seven days of the early voting period. That’s an increase of 6.6 percent over 2020 when more than 1,761,000 voters had cast ballots after seven days of in-person voting. Factoring in increases in registered voters between 2020 and 2024, in-person early voting is up 0.4 percent over 2020.”

For those election watchers who want to closely track the action, the State Board publishes daily turnout reports on its website.

In-person early voting in North Carolina runs through Saturday, Nov. 2, however, sites and schedules vary by county.

Some counties, for instance, don’t have Sunday voting, while some do.

Guilford County splits the baby: On Sunday, Oct. 20, early voting polling places were closed, but they’ll be open on Sunday, Oct. 27.  In some parts of the state and at times in other states, there has been a heated debate over whether to allow Sunday voting.

Some say it helps Democrats because, in the past, one popular practice has been for black churchgoers to get on a bus after the sermon and go to the polls and vote collectively.  This election cycle is so crazy that – with Trump doing well with evangelicals and blacks – that practice could very well help Trump rather than hurt him.

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