A yardstick for November's election?

More people voted in the Democratic primary than for John Kerry.

According to the State Board of Elections, 1,563,958 people voted in the Democratic presidential primary this year.

That's 38,109 more than the 1,525,849 who voted for the Kerry-Edwards ticket in 2004 — potentially a 2.5 percent increase in the Democratic base.

There are several potential reasons: A) The population has grown in the past four years, so there are more voters. B) Black voters, who were not particularly enthused about Kerry, turned out en masse for Barack Obama. C) More unaffiliated voters crossed over in the primary than in the 2004 general election.

Does it mean that North Carolina is in play in November? Not unless the Democrats can snag some more Republicans or Republican-voting unaffiliated voters, since Bush garnered 1.9 million votes that election.

Still, the Obama campaign said that North Carolina and Indiana are the first two states where the Democratic primary has attracted more than 100 percent of the Kerry vote.