DataRepublican (small r)
@DataRepublican
Final North Carolina update: 🔴 NC is now the most important state in the election, and it all comes down to a red Election Day.
Map updated: https://joeisdone.github.io/northcarolina/
As predicted in prior updates, yesterday was the Democrats' final and historically best shot at chipping away the Republican lead in North Carolina. And they did so, reducing the lead to R 🔴+41,729. This marks the first time that Republicans will go into Election Day with an early voting lead.
Here's yesterday's results:
🔴 R: 69,074
🔵 D: 78,970
🟡 I: 96,399; modeled as 🔴 R: 44,052 and 🔵 D: 52,347
Net votes yesterday: 🔵 D+9,896; 🔵 D+18,191 with Democratic-leaning 🟡 I added in.
That sounds startling, but this is a typical pattern for the last day of in-person voting not just in North Carolina, but in all over the country. To give an idea, compare to the last day of in-person voting in 2022:
🔴 R: 48,671
🔵 D: 64,019
🟡 I: 56,861; modeled as 🔴 R: 23,859 and 🔵 D: 33,001
The damage to the equivalent day in 2022, on much lower midterms volume, was 🔵 D+24,490 including independents. Big Ouch.
So, overall I am very happy with yesterday's results.
The early voting ends on a virtual tie - I project Republicans would have a narrow lead of 🔴 R+31,921 votes if all ballots were counted including independents. This also matches the separate estimate of Elon Musk's PAC of Republicans leading by 🔴 R+40,553 votes. This lead has never happened in North Carolina; when I apply this projection to other years, Democrats had a 5% or better lead going in.
Where do we need to go on Election Day?
Put aside all your assumptions about polling and start thinking in terms of what parties have to do in each state for Election Day.
As I have stated in multiple posts the last two days, Kamala Harris has a lot less work to do to win North Carolina than to win Pennsylvania. In Pennsylvania, Republicans only need to perform a "normal" Election Day effort to be virtually guaranteed a victory; Harris has to flip many hundreds of thousands of absentee voters into Election Day voters.
On the other hand, in North Carolina, Harris needs only to have a decent GOTV effort to win in North Carolina. For that reason, in every scenario which I have gamed out mapping a Kamala path to victory, North Carolina is at the center of it - making North Carolina the most important swing state in 2024 for both campaigns.
Repeating: according to early voting data, North Carolina is the must-win state for both parties. Full stop. That is why it is wise of Trump to make so many stops there in the last days.
But Trump has a lot less work to do than Kamala to win North Carolina. Early voting was supposed to be the Democrats' time to shine, and they're at an extreme disadvantage now.
With Trump having a slight lead in North Carolina, the prescription still stands - if Election Day is 🔴red, then Trump wins. If Election Day is 🔵blue, then Kamala wins.
And that is true for all 7 swing states.
Deus Vult.
https://x.com/DataRepublican/status/1853080082824437930