Tag: North Carolina

A surprising 43 percent of Tar Heel residents were born out-of-state, according to a recent blog post by the Carolina Population Center at UNC Chapel Hill. Help us deliver journalism that makes a difference in our community. The politics of those born out of state seem to be a little different from North Carolina natives. In 2017, non-natives for the first time outnumbered native North Carolinians. Of the 2.96 million registered voters known to be born out of state, 33 percent are Democrats, 30 percent are Republicans and 37 percent are unaffiliated. Another way of looking at it is that of all registered Democrats, 56 percent are North Carolina natives and 44 percent were born out of state. Of all registered Republicans, 51 percent are North Carolina natives and 49 percent were born out of state. Of all the unaffiliated voters, 41 percent are North Carolina natives and 59 percent were born out of state. White Southerners moving into North Carolina tend to register as Republicans, while black Southerners tend to register as Democrats, according to an analysis by Bitzer on his blog, Old North State Politics. The two Southern states that twice voted for Democratic President Barack Obama — Virginia and Florida — are also the two Southern states where polls show the voters are to the left of North Carolina’s voters.