Political insiders believe North Carolina Democrats would have performed better if national groups had spent more on the U.S. Senate race, if the state party hadn’t left legislative races uncontested, if they had organized more quickly, and if the party had done a better job of turning out its base. Election data show that turnout among regular Democratic targets — young voters, Black voters, and voters in metropolitan areas — fell short of participation levels in 2018.


Michael Bitzer, a political scientist at Catawba College, found that participation was down 3% among city voters, 6% among Black voters, and 8% among Hispanic voters as well as young voters, compared to 2018.

North Carolina’s total turnout was 51.4% this year, about 2% lower than the 2018 midterms. Voter participation declined in each of the state’s largest voting hubs: Wake, Mecklenburg, Guilford, Forsyth, and Durham counties.
Among those counties, Mecklenburg had the largest falloff in participation — 45% this year, down from nearly 51% in 2018 — and its drop may have hurt the most. Of all 100 North Carolina counties, Mecklenburg has the most registered Democrats, the most Black voters, and the most Hispanic voters.


Beasley lost her race by 121,737 votes. If the same registered Democrats who voted in 2018 also voted this year, Bitzer found that Beasley likely would have won her race. Nearly 820,000 voters skipped out on this year’s election after participating in 2018, he said. About 333,000 of those lapsed voters were registered Democrats.