North Carolina has seen record highs for in-person early voter turnout so far this election, but most of the Border Belt counties are lagging behind the rest of the state.
Columbus and Scotland counties both had a turnout rate of about 12% as of Sunday, after three days of early in-person voting, according to the state Board of Elections. Robeson County had a turnout rate of about 9%.
That compares to a statewide turnout of about 13% as of Sunday, as more than 1 million voters cast ballots. Bladen County surpassed the statewide rate with 15%.
Early voting figures include in-person, mail in, military and overseas ballots.
In Bladen, Robeson and Scotland counties, registered Democrat voters outpaced unaffiliated and Republican voters during the first three days, following a statewide trend. In Columbus County, the two parties were nearly equal with five more Republicans casting early votes as of Sunday.
Surrogates for both Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump are making a final appeal to voters in rural North Carolina. Donald Trump Jr. and former President Bill Clinton both made stops in Robeson County on Friday, and each talked about support for full federal recognition for the Lumbee tribe.
Trump Jr. appeared in Red Springs with Tulsi Gabbard, a former U.S. representative from Hawaii, and Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma. Along with federal recognition, they all addressed crime, border security and inflation.
“We save our country by taking action,” Gabbard said to the crowd. “There is only one choice in this election. President Trump is our best and only hope to help save this country and save the world.”
Chelsea Cooley Clark, a North Carolinian and 2005 Miss USA who moderated the event, expressed her support for full federal recognition for the Lumbee tribe, which was granted partial recognition by Congress in 1956.
“The sheer magnitude of the Lumbee nation being federally recognized helps with every single issue that we have talked about tonight,” she said. “It opens up the floodgates for something that should have been done a very, very long ago, and I am very grateful that President Trump wants to lead the charge on that.”
Clinton made a stop at the Museum of the Southeast American Indian at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke and had lunch at Fuller’s Old Fashion BBQ.
“Great to meet with Lumbee leaders in Pembroke this week,” Clinton posted on X. “I’m proud to be in North Carolina to campaign for (Kamala Harris) who will fight for long overdue federal recognition for the Lumbee Tribe as President.”
In a photo with the post, Clinton appears with UNC Pembroke Chancellor Robin Cummings, a Lumbee who faced calls to resign from students and alumni after he attended a Trump rally in Robeson County in 2020. Lumbee Tribal Chairman John Lowery also talked with Clinton, while his brother, Republican state Rep. Jarrod Lowery, was with Trump Jr.
Neither Cummings nor Lowery immediately responded to email and phone call requests for comment on Monday.
Robeson County, home to about 117,000 residents, was a longtime Democratic stronghold where Barack Obama won in 2008 and 2012. But the county has seen a major swing toward GOP candidates: Trump won nearly 51% of the county’s vote in 2016 and 59% of the vote in 2020.
Early voting statistics are rarely indicative of election outcomes, but they do show patterns of how North Carolinians are casting their ballots, political scientists Chris Cooper and Michael Bitzer wrote in a blog post published Friday. They said using early voting numbers to predict election outcomes is “like bringing a fishing pole to a home run derby — it’s just the wrong tool for the job.”
After three days of in-person voting in 2020, the statewide turnout rate was nearly 30%, a much higher figure because many voters used absentee ballots during the COVID-19 pandemic. This year’s in-person early voters set a first-day record, casting more than 350,000 ballots on Thursday.
Republican voters accounted for 33% of all early ballots so far this year through Sunday, compared to 27% after the same period in 2020. The GOP’s “bank your vote” initiative encourages Republicans to vote early.
In-person early voting runs through Saturday, Nov. 2, and sites and schedules vary by county. For details, check out the voter guides for Bladen, Columbus, Robeson and Scotland counties published by the Border Belt Independent.