Since Vice President Kamala Harris became the presumptive Democratic nominee following President Biden's exit, polls have shown the race for president tightening.
In North Carolina, the closer race is manifesting in another way: New Democratic voter registrations.
In the summer of a presidential election year, both parties typically add new voters each week as people get engaged about the upcoming election.
But when Biden was running for reelection, the North Carolina Democratic Party struggled in terms of new voter registrations. The number of registered Democrats was going down each week by about 700 people — the result of more Democrats either moving out of state or leaving the party than new people joining.
In the week after the party coalesced behind Harris, the number of registered Democrats in North Carolina increased by 441.
And in the past week, that number increased again, by nearly 700.
It's possible that would have happened if Biden were still running for reelection. It's also possible that Harris has reenergized voters, making more people want to join the Democratic Party.
Republicans are still having a better presidential election cycle over the long term. Since Aug. 2020, the N.C. GOP has added 161,000 new registered voters. The N.C. Democratic Party has lost 135,000 registered voters.
Only six of 100 N.C. counties have more registered Democrats than four years ago — Brunswick, Cabarrus, Chatham, Wake, Franklin and Johnston.
The Harris campaign believes it can make up for those losses from the growing pool of voters who register as unaffiliated. Their numbers have increased by nearly 500,000.
The current breakdown of N.C. voters is 37.5% unaffiliated; 31.7% Democratic; 29.9% Republican, with the remaining less than 1% members of third parties.
