North Carolina
North Carolina’s battle for unaffiliated voting bloc challenging — here’s the key
(The Center Square) – North Carolina’s population has more than doubled the last 20 years, its voter registration rolls swelling by more than 2.4 million along with it, yet Republicans and Democrats have just marginal gains.
Those signing up unaffiliated, on the other hand, are now the largest voting bloc.
Quite a journey from trailing Democrats 47.6%-17.7% in share midway of the Bush administration.
Two experts of state politics and campaigns agree there’s more to the story than sheer numbers.
And strategies in the next 140 days should be chess rather than checkers.
“In some research I’ve conducted with Michael Bitzer, Whitney Ross Manzo and Susan Roberts, we found that unaffiliated voters are best understood as ‘unmoored voters,’” Chris Cooper, a political science and public affairs professor at Western Carolina University, told The Center Square on Wednesday.
“They tend to stay near their partisan docks, but, with nothing tying them there, a large change in political weather may send them in unpredictable directions.”
Reliability in turnout is also in play with the group.
“The rise of unaffiliated voters makes the political landscape a little less predictable for campaigns,” Andy Jackson, director of the Civitas Center for Public Integrity, told The Center Square on Wednesday.
“It forces them to rely on other data, such as which primaries unaffiliated voters vote in or what media they consume, to predict which party they are more likely to support. It forces campaigns to spend more effort and money on their get-out-the-vote operations.”
Jackson, like Cooper, said unaffiliated voters “behave like weak partisans.”
He estimates 10% as truly independent, meaning evenly dividing support of parties.
In 20 years, since Jan. 1, 2004, the state’s population has increased 26.7%.
Through Saturday, the voter registrations had changed significantly as well – the more than 5 million then split 47.6% Democrats, 34.4% Republicans and 17.7% unaffiliated, to now more than 7.4 million split 37.2% unaffiliated, 31.9% Democrats and 30% Republicans.
In volume number, while the state’s population more than doubled in 20 years to better than 10.8 million, Democrats have just 11,854 more registrations – and 220,040 less than the day Joe Biden was elected president.
Republicans are up more than 525,000 over the two decades, and are down 25,573 since Nov. 7, 2020.
The voters choosing unaffiliated, meanwhile, have grown from fewer than 900,000 to more than 2.8 million.
During the Biden administration, the number has risen 353,566.
The bloc grew 387,096 in the four years between elections won and lost by former President Donald Trump.
As the Trump v. Biden rematch nears, that just shy of three-quarters of a million, 6.8% of the total population, and 1 in 10 of all registered voters.
Jackson notes 2020 turnout was 69.8% of unaffiliated, 81.6% of Republicans and 75.1% of Democrats.
Trump, as every Republican presidential candidate has for 60 years except Gerald Ford in 1976 and John McCain in 2008, won North Carolina in 2016 and 2020.
Consensus of polling just over four months away, including after his felony conviction, puts him at about a 5% lead.
Republicans also have three-fifths majorities in each chamber of the General Assembly.
But the governor’s office has had just three Republicans since 1900.
Polling indicates Republican Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson and Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein are in a dead heat as the summer temps begin to bake.
Jackson said part of the reason for lower turnout by unaffiliated voters “is that they tend to be younger than partisans, and younger people vote less often. So, campaigns that plan to win by courting unaffiliated voters have their work cut out for them.”
And that means, Cooper adds, “The battle over unaffiliated voters is therefore, the key to victory in North Carolina, not because they are universally persuadable, but because small nudges in mobilization may be the key to victory.”
(WLOS) — In a tragic update, one of the baby barn owls being monitored by the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission has died after a great horned owl entered the barn and killed the owlet. The barn owlets had attracted worldwide attention through the wildlife commission’s ongoing observation efforts.
Officials with N.C. Wildlife said it is not yet clear which owlet was killed, but confirmed it was one of the three youngest.
The wildlife commission said it captured a photo of the great horned owl and the adult female barn owl fighting on top of the box, calling it an “extremely rare encounter to capture on camera.”
PHOTOS: OWLETS ‘HOO’ GAINED WORLDWIDE FAME ARE GROWING QUICKLY INTO YOUNG ADULTS
The wildlife commission said that while this loss is tragic, it is a common encounter because great horned owls are a top predator of barn owls. Officials also said this will likely not be the last encounter.
Over the next few weeks, the commission said viewers will likely see the remaining owlets start exploring, leaving the barn and learning to hunt. The fledglings may leave the barn as early as July to start hunting on their own, according to the commission.
You’ve got to feel terrible for former North Carolina standout Henri Veesaar right now. When he announced that he was leaving Chapel Hill to take his game to the NBA, plenty of eyebrows were raised. However, he was getting first-round grades, which made the decision a bit easy for him. That call has come back to backfire on him.
The first round of the NBA Draft has wrapped up, and the star big man never heard his name called. You’ve got to be kidding. There was always a bit of a worry that Veesaar would fall to the second round, but the recent buzz calmed worries there. Now, though, this setback has surely proverbially slapped him in the face a bit:
UNC’s Henri Veesaar does not get selected in the first round of the 2026 NBA Draft. He slips into the second round.
Turned down between $3-4 million to return to UNC? Maybe more?
— Ross Martin (@RossMartinNC) June 24, 2026
Henri Veesaar falling to the second round of the NBA Draft is a bit of a stunner
It’s no secret that Michael Malone and his new UNC staff were quite aggressive in their pursuits of bringing him back to Chapel Hill, as he would have easily had the Tar Heels in the Top 15-20 conversation. At first, with mock drafts popping up with him as a second-rounder, it felt like a return to the ACC was going to be in the works. The narrative changed there not long after, though.
He indeed bolted for the NBA Draft, with the assumption that he was going to be a first-rounder. Veesaar took a bit of a chance there, and things just did not go to plan for him. Let’s make one thing clear here too: we’re not happy in any way. With Veesaar leaving, Carolina fans were wishing him the best, the same way they were for Caleb Wilson.
Wilson ended up getting his life-changing news early during draft night, with the Chicago Bulls taking him off the board at No. 4 overall. Things were only made better for Wilson and North Carolina as a whole with Hubert Davis on hand for the former 5-star freshman’s big moment. It was a surprise not many of us were ready for.
On the flip side of things, Veesaar was left waiting for his special moment, but it never arrived. Is it possible that he’s having some serious regrets over things? We don’t want to speak for Veesaar or make any assumptions, but this just sucks as a whole for him. After averaging 17 points and eight rebounds per game, while taking home all-conference honors, it’s a bit of a stunner that his draft slide has taken place like this.
Had Veesaar returned to school, North Carolina’s 2026-27 outlook would have been looking much stronger. Instead, Malone went overseas to bring in Sayon Keita and Alexandros Samodurov to help carry the load near the glass. That helps, but replacing Veesaar was always going to be a difficult task, as he’s a dominant force. We can play the ‘what if’ game all we want had he stayed in Chapel Hill for one more season, but that’s pointless. Still, it’s now feeling like Veesaar got some bad advice, and that playing for Malone would have been the best thing for him next campaign.
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This spring, more than 62,000 people from North Carolina and
around the world watched as six barn owl eggs hatched live on the North Carolina Wild Life Resource Commission’s “Owl Cam.”
“We have folks who have watched from almost every
state, as well as Canada, Switzerland, Germany, the UK, France, the
Netherlands, Portugal, New Zealand, Italy, Estonia, Ireland, Argentina, Sweden,
Spain and more,” said Wildlife Conservation Engagement Coordinator Austin
Hill.
When asked what he thinks people connect with most while
watching the owls, Hill said the camera offers a rare look into the lives of
barn owls.
“We don’t see them too often at all, and it’s giving
people a glimpse into the life of a barn owl,” Hill said. “It’s very
rare that we’re able to see inside the nest of any creature that’s hidden in a
cavity.”
Hill said viewers enjoyed watching the owlets hatch, grow,
learn to fly and experience all the clumsy moments in between.
At this time all the owls have fledged, meaning they have all learned how to
fly.
“The oldest three owls fledged on the (June)
15th, they’re all females and then the male, the youngest, fledged on
the (June) 20th and you’ll start to see them popping around the
barn,” Hill said.
The webcam will continue to show the adult owls delivering
food to the nest as the owls prepare to leave the barn and learn to hunt.
The
young owls will learn by watching the behaviors of their parents. Depending on their development, the owls could
leave as early as July or as late as September or October.
NCWRC installed the owl nest box in 2011.
It was installed in an undisclosed remote location in Western North Carolina
and used for agency monitoring.
The idea of having a live webcam was a recent idea
created during and Educational Division
meeting.
“It allows us to see what happens in the nest of an
elusive raptor and behaviors we wouldn’t be able to observe from outside the
box,” Hill said. “We’re building out some K-12 curriculum to go along
with the camera so it can extend into the classroom.”
Once the young owls leave, the camera will go offline sometime this fall.
Hill
said staff will perform maintenance on the barn, relocate one of the cameras
and then put the system back in place in hopes that the same owl pair returns
this winter to begin its courtship and mating season. If that happens, the
process can start all over again.
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