A few more digits for the data-starved post-election numbers addicts: Who are the most reliable straight-ticket voters in North Carolina? The Democrats, who predominate in numbers? You can certainly make that case, but there are some interesting nuances. One is that the Libertarian Party was one hell of a draw in this election.
Democrats represent about 46 percent of all registered voters, but in the election that began Oct. 16 and culminated on Election Day Nov. 4, 58.76% of the straight ticket votes cast went to the Democratic Party. (That's 1,283,486 out of a total 2.1 million straight ticket votes, according to the State Board of Elections Web site.)
While Republicans represent about 32 percent of the registered voters, 40.4 percent of straight-party votes (881,856) went for the Republican ticket.
So you can say that both Democrats and Republicans enjoyed straight-party support in excess of their proportion of registered voters.
This is not quite the same as saying that all those straight-party Democratic ballots were cast by Democrats, or that all those Republican straight-party ballots were cast by Republicans. There may have been a number of straight-ticket ballots cast by unaffiliated voters, who make up 22 percent of the state's registered voters. And of course there might have been some crossover straight tickets, too.
The interesting number to me was the number of straight-party ballots cast for the Libertarian ticket. There are only 3,683 North Carolinians registered as Libertarian, but there were 19,054 ballots cast for the Libertarian ticket. That's five times as many straight-ticket votes as there are registered voters for the Libertarian Party.
Of course, the Libertarian ticket was mighty short compared to the Democrats and Republicans, and Libertarian numbers are relatively tiny. Libertarians got less than 1 percent of the total straight ticket vote. But to draw straight party votes from a group five times the size of the party itself must be gratifying in some way.
