First of all, in a bit of breaking poll news, there's a new poll of NC out from Elon University, showing a 45-45 tie.
Actually, the Elon poll shows Barack Obama ahead by .1% - 45.4% to 45.3%. Obama is ahead in the poll by literally one person - 562 poll respondents to 561.
Edit - tell that to anyone who says their vote does not count. It sure does in NC!!! 1 person!
North Carolina could not possibly be closer.
Among early voters in the Elon poll, Obama is ahead 55-37, which is pretty close to my 54.4% Obama early vote support estimate, and also pretty close to PPP's 57-42 in the PPP poll a few days ago.
But both PPP and Elon have Obama doing a bit better than me among early voters, so I am starting to wonder if I may be underestimating Obama's early vote support.
Romney is ahead by 48%-43% among people who have not yet voted. If Romney only wins election day voters by about 5%, Obama is in the position he needs to be to win, even given the higher Republican early voting turnout we have seen.
Record Breaking African American Voter Turnout:
Now, where were we? Oh yeah:
30% of African Americans in North Carolina age 18+ have already voted.
That's 440,941 voters - 30% of North Carolina's entire 1,480,769 person African American voting age population counted by the Census Bureau in 2010.
That's not 30% of African American registered voters. That's 30% of all African American adults. Because, for one more week in North Carolina, you can register to vote and actually cast your ballot at the same time, all in one stop. So even if a would-be voter is not registered to vote right now, they can still register and vote.
But that 30% number will go much higher.
Because there's still another week of early voting left to go.
At this time in 2008, half of the African Americans who voted early had already voted. And so if we keep up at the pace we're going, another 440,000 African Americans in North Carolina will have voted by the end of the early voting period, bringing turnout up to about 60% of the North Carolina's total African American adult population.
Plus, then there's Election Day on top of that.
How high will turnout go on election day? I don't know, exactly. But I do know it'll be some really high, historic number. It'll certainly be much higher than 56.9%, which is the national U.S. Voting Age Population turnout rate from the 2008 election. At this rate, it'll be that high by election day, and some amount higher afterwards.
So regardless of exactly how African American turnout in NC goes, this is not the sort of voter turnout we normally see in America. This is more typical of the voter turnout we might see in some other country, like Australia, where there is always very near to 100% turnout (because not voting is illegal in Australia).
This is something special - something that doesn't happen very often.
Keep in mind that turnout in 2008 already shattered all previous records, by a long way. In October and November of 2008, African American voters in North Carolina flocked to the polls to help elect the first African American President in American history. They were fired up, ready to go, excited, hopeful, and just a few months ago had been the center of national attention as they delivered Barack Obama his 56-42 Democratic Primary win over Hillary Clinton.
By all reasonable expectations, it ought to be essentially impossible to increase turnout above the level of 2008 turnout.
And yet...
So far, African American turnout is up from 357,160 to 440,941 votes, a 23.5% increase over this same time in 2008.
If that is not an amazing statistic, then I'm afraid you are just not the sort of person who can possibly be amazed by statistics.
Sunday Voting and "Souls to the Polls":
Sunday was another good day of early voting for President Obama. At least 35,149 people voted, but counties are often slow in updating vote totals. Moreover, an estimated 59.8% of those people voted for Obama.
Click on the picture below for a full sized chart.
That 35,149 number may seem relatively low, but that is because Sunday voting is only held in a relatively small number of counties, and the hours are more limited than on other days. Last Sunday, 26,947 people voted.
Overall, Obama now leads Romney in North Carolina by an estimated 825,025 votes to 691,120 votes, a lead of 133,905 votes.
Turnout Graphs:
White Republican Turnout is up:
Minority and White Democratic Turnout is up:
Obama continues to build his lead. On Sunday, Obama added an estimated 6,861 more votes to his lead, which is on pace with 2008 for the first time in about a week:
And in the daily margins chart, you can see that it was on pace with 2008:
And the same data showed as vote percentages:
Previous NC Early Voting Diaries:
Day 1 & Methodology
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Day 6
Day 7
Day 9
Day 10
10:13 AM PT: I originally misread the Elon poll crosstab (should have read across, but read down instead).
It actually finds that Obama is up by 55%-37% with early voters, not 55%-43. Romney is up 48%-43% among people who have not yet voted.
Early voters are 23% of the sample, which is about right.