GOLDSBORO, North Carolina — Early vote numbers in North Carolina show the electorate skewing older and whiter, compared to the state’s voter registration, a red flag for Democrats who need Black voters to turn out in heavy numbers if Kamala Harris is going to flip this state.
As of Wednesday, Black voters make up 18 percent of the electorate in early voting, and some Democratic operatives said they must bump that up to about 20 percent for Harris to be competitive statewide. In 2020, Black voters were 19 percent of the electorate, when Donald Trump narrowly won the state. And Democrats acknowledge that without a swing in their favor in the last days of early voting or on Election Day, it may not be good enough.
About 36,000 more African Americans had voted in-person by this point in 2020 than in 2024, and “that gap has to be closed among African Americans for Democrats to win,” said Thomas Mills, a Democratic strategist in the state…