At this point the polls show that "Neither" is running very well | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: This article originally appeared in the Beaufort Observer.

    As of July 5, 2012 there were 6,278,428 registered voters in North Carolina. Of those, 2,726,102 were registered as Democrats, 1,970,791 as Republicans, 13,789 as Libertarian and 1,567,746 were Unaffiliated. Just a quick glimpse at those numbers tells you several important things about North Carolina politics.

    • Democrats have the edge, but not enough to guarantee any Democrat electability. Democrats would not win any statewide race if every registered voter voted. They only have 43% of the registered voters.

    • For a Republican to win a statewide race he/she must get all of the Republican vote plus nearly all of the unaffiliated vote. To the degree they do not achieve that, they must pull Democrat votes to win.

    • But none of that matters. What matters is turnout. The above projections hold true IF the rate of turnout is about the same in each party, but only if that's true, and it hardly ever is.

    • So if either the Democrats or the Republicans can turn out a significantly higher percentage of their voters they win. That is, IF they get a significant percentage of the Unaffiliated vote.

    To understand the significance of all this one needs to factor in one other fact. Most blacks are registered as Democrats. Those who vote in any given election vote overwhelmingly for the Democrat (90%+) whoever it is, as some would say "even if it was a Yellow Dog running." So no matter who is running as a Republican they are not going to get much of the black vote, no matter how they run. Whether a Republican is running as a "liberal, moderate or conservative" does not matter. They are not going to get much of the black vote.

    Another interesting statistic. Of the voters who voted a straight party ticket in 2010, only slightly more Democrats (51%) voted a straight ticket than did Republicans (48%).

    So what does that leave?

    The answer is simple. There are two ways someone can beat a Democrat in North Carolina and really it is just one way: They must get the Unaffiliated vote while carrying most of the Republican vote. Thus, the Unaffiliated voters are the swing voters and they control who wins.

    And although the numbers are slightly different in Beaufort County they are close enough to the state's to make the same assumptions true in Beaufort as in the state.

    One more historical fact: Barack Obama won North Carolina in 2010 by only 14,177 votes. A number of people know that Libertarian Bob Barr got 25,722 votes. While you can debate where those 25,722 voters would have gone had a Libertarian not been on the ballot, it is easier to conjecture that the 13,942 people who wrote in someone's name who was not even running were casting protest votes. Wonder how many of those 13,942 people today are glad they let Barack Obama win?

    Now, fast forward to the 2012 election.
Lt. Governor Walter Dalton speaking to Beaufort County citizens at the Beaufort County 300th Birthday Celebration: Above.     photo by Stan Deatherage
    Most Republicans in the state have taken great comfort in the polls since the filing closed. Almost all of them has shown McCrory leading Walton Dalton. But the dirty underside is that those polls pit McCrory against Dalton. But that is not how the election will play out. Voters will have a third choice other than Dalton or McCrory.
North Carolina Governor Candidate Pat McCroy speaks to supporters in Beaufort County, June, 2011: Above.     photo by Stan Deatherage
    The Civitas Institute just published a poll done the first week of July. It should be a startling wake-up call for Republicans. What it shows is that Pat McCrory's lead over Walton Dalton is within the margin of error when people polled were given a chance to "vote" for someone other than Dalton or McCrory.

    Click here to review the Civitas numbers.

    This simply re-enforces what we have been saying here for months. It is a strategic mistake to assume how voters will respond in a two-race. The temptation is to view it as "Romney vs. Obama," "Dalton vs. McCrory," or Williams vs. Lawson and thus the winner there vs. Paul Tine.

    It will not play out that way. Rather, the issue of who wins will be decided by turnout. If either the Democrats or Republicans turn out significantly more than the other then that candidate will likely win. If the Unaffiliated voters who turn out to vote swing to either party that candidate will win. Simple as that.

    The House 6 race illustrates the idea as well as any other. Whether Williams wins or Lawson wins will be determined by who turns out in a low-turnout election. If Williams wins the chances are that many Republicans will simply not vote in November. But more importantly, many of the grassroots "true Republicans" will not get out and work to turn out the Republican vote against Tine. He will get most of the Democrat vote and will thus have to pull only a few Unaffiliated voters, which he can probably do. Without a heavy conservative turnout, Tine wins. Simple as that.

    The same is true for McCrory, at least Down East. And history shows that it is almost impossible for a candidate to win the governorship without carrying the East.

    What the political strategists must remember is that voters have three choices, always: Democrat, Republican or neither. We predict right now that Neither is running well.