Election 2008: How did Obama win NC?

[Triana]

bytheway is a pretty interesting mailing list/site - I've been a reader for years - if anyone's interested, have a look.
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Obama's success in winning 18.6 million votes in 13 Southern states and driving record turnout across the region - while turnout nationally remained flat - will hopefully banish the "write off the South" mentality in Democratic circles for a while. It was always dubious -- and a recipe for long-term political suicide -- given that the South is the fastest-growing region in the country, home to half the nation's African-American population, and is showing the most rapid demographic change in America.

Now, Democrats also know that mentality is just plain wrong - and Republicans know they can't take the region for granted.

But back to North Carolina: How did Obama turn North Carolina blue? Here are six key factors that gave him the victory:

1 - Obama mobilized the base: Perhaps more than any other candidate could have, Obama mobilized his core base in North Carolina in record numbers. At the forefront were African-American voters, who added over 300,000 registrations in 2008 and went to Obama by 95%. Obama also won over young voters by large numbers: 74% of those under 30 went Obama.

2 - The growing urban South: Obama won 66% of voters in the state's growing urban areas -- 64% in the Raleigh-Durham area alone. According to Public Policy Polling, urban areas made up 303,000 of the 436,000 votes Obama needed to gain relative to John Kerry's performance in 2004.

3 - The economy: From manufacturing to the state's huge finance sector, the North Carolina economy got hammered this year. Unemployment was inching above 8%. Similar to national trends, 54% of those who were "very worried" about the economy in N.C. voted Obama; he also won 57% of those making less than $50,000 a year. The more the percentage of people worried about the economy went up, so did Obama's numbers.


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MUCH more:

http://www.southernstudies.org/2008/11/election-2008-how-did-obama-win-nc.html

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

1. massive turnout, but he won by 14,000 votes

so it was a nail biter!

[Triana]

2. Absolutely. The GOTV, canvassing, phonebanking efforts....

..and writing letters too (Durham women vote org).

It's very gratifying to see what a difference it made! It made THE difference. Nail-biter, yea, but we still turned NC blue!!

[Kelly Hayes-Raitt]

6. Exciting!

Exciting....

[MadAnne]

3. I think it was that Opie and Andy ad Rob Howard did. n/t

[Triana]

4. It's Ron Howard, isn't it? n/t

[MadAnne]

5. Yep, I knew that, just can't type. Thanks. n/t