My NC prediction with numbers.

[elcorazon]

mccain should win by about 4-500,000 votes.  probably double digits.

[Robespierre's Jaw]

No chance Obama will win North Carolina this year. He'll do better than Kerry in 2004 but Obama will still lose. McCain should win anywhere between a 8-9 point win over Obama.

I have him winning 63% of the white vote.

I also don't see McCain dropping 10 percent amongst white voters in North Carolina. He will win the White vote by 2-1 as RightWingNut said.

[Fmr. Pres. Duke]

Absolutely no way that Obama does +10% better among whites in NC than Kerry did. He'll be lucky to do as well.

[WalterMitty]

I would say blacks slightly increase their electorate size from 2004, whites slightly decrease, Obama does slightly better among blacks and his performance among whites is variable on how well he does nationally.

Overall, I would expect North Carolina to trend marginally Democratic vs. the national average if Obama does well.  There would have to be stellar black turnout and very low fundamentalist Christian turnout for the state to be competitive.

as far as i know, the lumbees have no reservation.

You're right.  And I didn't mean Lumberton, either (batting zero today...)  I meant:

Prospect = 96% Native = 53% Kerry
Pembroke = 89% Native = 55% Kerry

Those are CDPs instead of cities, so the precincts may be bigger than the CDPs, but still, the Lumbee don't seem especially Democratic (and/or probably don't vote).

And if those are the margins they manage to turn in when they're living in poor, all-Indian settlements (poverty rates approach and exceed 40% in Pembroke), I doubt they're especially Democratic statewide.

In fact, that may be the least Democratic Native voting I've seen outside of Alaska.

there is also a  university in pembroke.  hard to believe kerry did so badly there.

[Josh/Devilman88]

Absolutely no way that Obama does +10% better among whites in NC than Kerry did. He'll be lucky to do as well.

He could if the consv christian voter don't show out for McCain like the did for bush.

[Josh/Devilman88]

UPDATED

[nyquil_man]

NC may be close, but unless Obama's winning by 5-10% nationally, I don't see him winning there.

[Josh/Devilman88]

updated with the number RV numbers as for 5-10-08

[Sbane]

Josh I think you are overestimating the number of whites who would vote for Obama. Other than that its pretty interesting to see.

[NOVA Green]

Looks like Josh was pretty prescient here....

NC Whites: 64-35 (McCain)

If anything he slightly underestimated White support for Obama in NC.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

That reminds me of J. J. calling me "Zach the Barak Hack" for underestimating Obama in North Carolina in the primary.

[NOVA Green]

That reminds me of J. J. calling me "Zach the Barak Hack" for underestimating Obama in North Carolina in the primary.

Yeah, I remember seeing a lot of "so and so is a hack" posts during the election,, although in my mind a hack is someone who can't justify their predictions through logic and numbers, but just insists that "candidate X will win state Y because I think they will or I want them to".

By this definition, many of the regular posters on the election threads (Josh, yourself, and JJ as well) who tried to argue your points would not meet my strict "hack standards".

Of course if we were to develop a "Hackometer" on a scale of 0-10 that incorporated other variables than just state/county predictions than many of us might have slight hackish tendencies on other types of thread postings.