Another year of solid gain is in the books.
Unaffiliateds in North Carolina are about half a percentage point from being level with Democrats as the largest voting block among 7.1 million registered voters. On Wednesday afternoon, the state board’s website had the difference down to 26,558 — and that’s fewer people than live in Bladen County.
In calendar year 2021, Democrats lost 0.82 percent of the total number of registered voters, and Republicans lost 0.11 percent. The unaffiliated went up 1.01 percent. Even Libertarians modestly increased 0.03 percent.
The leaders’ totals are 34.68 percent Democrats, 34.31 percent unaffiliated and 30.34 percent Republicans.
There has been a time when hearing what we wanted to hear was welcomed. It’s been over the last quarter-century, mostly with 1996 spinoffs MSNBC and Fox News shoveling biased information toward audiences. Hard to believe that time will last.
The latest statistics arguably give us evidence we’re tired of a fair number of other outlets once trusted. The over-the-air evening news at 6:30 every night is a shell of what it once was, and the more powerful of local television outlets have left the days of objective reporting in the trash bin as well.
There are tons of ways for people to get news and information.
Major political parties are in dire straits. They’re crashing and burning before our eyes, trying to stay united with demands among their followers that just won’t play in the 2020s. That card was dealt in the first two decades of the century, and the time of reckoning is upon us. We want real leadership.
CNBC/Change, in its polling, says our Democratic president has a 56 percent disapproval rating. The Republicans, meanwhile, are fighting over loyalty to or separation from the previous president.
Closer to home, the fighting over decennial map drawing is exposing hard truths and a lot of head scratching. No objective eye can view the maps drawn in the 50 years prior to Republicans moving into majority in the General Assembly in 2010 and say those were not incredulously gerrymandered. And while we neither condemn nor condone those drawn today, it’s obvious there’ll be no satisfaction for one party because lawsuits argue both for and against the inclusion of race data. The other party, seemingly, can’t win.
Why, just this week at a court hearing in Raleigh, the liberal plaintiffs trotted out UNC professor Dr. James Leloudis as an expert witness on their behalf. He was asked on the stand, “Does there have to be a Democratic majority in the General Assembly for minority voting strength not to be diluted?”
And he said, “I think that’s more or less true.”
Huh?
The implication black legislators can’t work with Republicans conflicts with more and more black voters favoring Republican candidates. It doesn’t add up to Mark Robinson earning 51.6 percent of the vote to become the state’s first black lieutenant governor.
More than that, it doesn’t add up to Democratic Sen. Toby Fitch, black and a 10-term incumbent, working with younger white Republican Sens. Bill Rabon and Danny Britt on the recently passed and highly hailed criminal justice reforms.
Rabon and Britt worked with a man they believed had a good plan. Fitch did, too. They saw it across the finish line, and even the left-leaning News & Observer saw enough to honor Britt.
Voters are seeing good plans and choosing wisely, too. And it’s not the party. The D and R don’t matter.
Another year of solid gain is in the books for unaffiliateds. And it really is no wonder.
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