How much will Barack Obama boost black turnout?

That question lies at the heart of the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee's campaign to win North Carolina's electoral votes.

At a campaign rally in August, Obama said that he could boost turnout among black voters by 25 to 30 percent — enough, he argued, to put states like North Carolina in play. 

"I guarantee you African-American turnout, if I'm the nominee, goes up 30 percent around the country, minimum," he said, according to USA Today. "Young people's percentage of the vote goes up 25-30 percent. So we're in a position to put states in play that haven't been in play since LBJ." 

That sounds like a tall order, but it's happened before. In the 2000 election, black turnout went up by more than 100,000, or about 25 percent, from the 1996 campaign. And in 2004, black turnout went up again by 154,000, or about 30 percent. 

To make a similar jump this year, black turnout would have to go up by 166,000 to 200,000 voters. 

After the jump, the raw numbers.

   Comments (4)

The Democratic presidential race drew a lot of reader interest.

Posts on Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton drew the most readers on the Under the Dome blog since April 1, thanks in part to links from Talking Points Memo, The Daily Kos, Andrew Sullivan, Facing South, Isaac Hunter's Tavern, From Fay to Z and Sister Toldjah.

Counting down the Five Most Viewed of Primary '08:

5. Turnout so far: 8 percent: Elections board reports receiving nearly a half million ballots, for 8.4 percent turnout, through absentee and early voting.

4. Elections board hunting robocaller: State Board of Elections looking for people responsible for confusing robocalls about voter registration.

3. More illegal robocalls in Durham? Former N&O reporter receives illegal robocall about mail-in ballots after the state's deadline has passed.

2. Price, Watt to endorse Obama: U.S. Reps. David Price and Mel Watt, both superdelegates, announce their support for Obama in mid-April.

1. Council backs Obama: Cumberland County Commissioner Jeanette Council, a superdelegate, announces her support for Obama on the eve of the May 6 primary.

Why did Beverly Perdue beat Richard Moore?

In a primary election as unusual as this one, it's dangerous to get too confident when drawing conclusions, but here are a few educated guesses about how Perdue won the primary today.

She was the frontrunner. As a two-term lieutenant governor and longtime legislator with a bevy of endorsements from big groups, Perdue was the favorite from the start and Moore never managed to knock her down.

She had good issues. Perdue had a good portfolio on both soft issues (health care, education) and hard issues (the military). Moore's issues were more national (climate change, Wall Street reform) and wonky (the line-item veto, transportation reform).

She benefited from high turnout. Perdue had strong support among women and black voters, two groups that were energized by the unusually competitive presidential primary between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

She went positive. Perdue and Moore both ran nasty campaigns through the fall, but Perdue went positive just as most voters started paying attention. That endeared her to Obama's "change" voters, won points for gutsiness and made Moore's attacks look bad.

She had fewer enemies. Moore manages the state pension fund? State employees sue him. Moore crusades on Wall Street? Forbes magazine attacks his campaign funding. Moore makes his case on education? The N.C. Association of Educators attacks him.

Moore never succeeded in opening any daylight between his campaign and Perdue's. When he endorsed Obama, she endorsed Obama. When he called for raising the minimum wage, opposed coal plants at Cliffside, etc. etc., so did she.

With the wind at her back from turnout, endorsements and expectations, Perdue managed to stay in the lead throughout the primary despite early missteps.

As of 2:15 p.m., 13 precincts in Wake County had reported early turnout numbers at the polls.

Precinct 1-15 had the highest percentage at 27 percent. The district is 90 percent white, 57 percent female and is located in a liberal enclave near Meredith College and N.C. State and not far from Whole Foods.

Precinct 1-29 had a turnout of 26 percent. It's 97 percent white and 53 percent female. The site is located in a middle-class neighborhood near the North Hills mall.

The precinct reporting the lowest turnout, 1-23, had received 7 percent of its voters at 1:30 p.m. The site is on the corner of Hillsborough Street and Pullen Road, mainly a neighborhood of college students. The district is 56 percent male.

The average turnout percentage for all reporting precincts was 16.8 percent. The highest number of voters at any one precinct so far was 698.

The numbers don't account for absentee and one-stop votes, which will be released at 7:30 p.m.

What numbers matter in the exit polls tonight?

In a post on The Primary Source, Peter St. Onge of the Charlotte Observer puts his finger on three:

The White Vote for Clinton, 65 percent: The Clinton campaign has focused its campaigning largely on the white, blue-collar vote in North Carolina. Hillary Clinton has spent most of her time away from the big cities here, and husband Bill has toured dozens of rural N.C. towns and smaller cities. If the exit polls show Hillary Clinton winning more than 65 percent of the white vote, that'll mean those small-town voters have turned out for her. Without that number, she likely won't win.

The African-American turnout, 35 percent: The big question among pollsters this week is how many blacks will vote in North Carolina. In 2004, 32 percent of N.C. voters were black. In early voting this year, the total was just more than 40 percent. The latter total is likely due to Obama's significant get-out-the-vote efforts, but if Obama can approach that number today - say, a 35 percent black turnout - his win will be more than five points. If the turnout is less than 30 percent, Clinton will be celebrating. 

The Meck Vote, 200K: You'll likely be reading about busy precincts and record turnout in Mecklenburg County today. The more voters that show, the better the news for Obama. Mecklenburg offers his best demographics - young voters, black voters, better-educated voters. If the Democratic primary vote approaches 200,000 here, that's good news for him. 

Turnout today could be nearly 2 million.

According to the Charlotte Observer, longtime political observers predict 1.5 million voters will participate in the Democratic primary and a half-million in the Republican primary. 

That would be more than 34 percent turnout. 

Eight percent of voters have already cast ballots.

As of 10 p.m., the State Board of Elections reports receiving 466,396 ballots at one-stop voting sites, which closed Saturday afternoon. Another 22,181 mailed in ballots.

That's 8.4 percent turnout so far.

To put that in context, turnout in the 2004 presidential primary was 16 percent, so we're already more than halfway towards that number and it's not even Election Day yet.

What will turnout be like in North Carolina's May 6 primary?

That depends in large part on how many unaffiliated voters show up at the polls.

Gary Bartlett, director of the State Board of Elections, said that he expects turnout among Democratic voters to be as high as 50 percent, but Republican turnout to be between 25 and 30 percent based on how absentee and one-stop voting has gone so far.

But he has no idea what turnout will be like among unaffiliated voters, who make up about one-fifth of the electorate.

Turnout has gone steadily down in the primaries during presidential election years over the past 20 years, in part because of the reduced importance of North Carolina in the primary calendar.

In 1988, when North Carolina was part of a Super Tuesday of Southern states, it was 31 percent.

In 1992, it was 30 percent; in 1996, 22 percent; in 2000, 18 percent; and in 2004, 16 percent.

If unaffiliated voters turn out in droves, the overall turnout could be as high as 40 percent this year, rivaling the general election turnout in a non-presidential year.

Still, Bartlett warns that as many as a third of voters could check the boxes for president and governor and then leave the voting booth.

Election officials are preparing for record turnout in the May 6 primary.

Because of the likelihood that North Carolina may still be in play on the Democratic presidential side, elections directors expect a huge number of new voters, the Winston-Salem Journal reports.

Since 1988, statewide voter turnout has been between 16 and 31 percent, according to the State Board of Elections. That's considered low.

But State Elections Director Gary Bartlett thinks it could top 50 percent on the Democratic side this time, and between 24 and 32 percent among Republicans.

In the first six weeks of 2008, more than 64,000 North Carolinians registered to vote for the first time—about twice the number of new voters who signed up during the same period in 2004.