Black Voters in North Carolina

In the Democratic primary for Lieutenant Governor, there was a perception that Hampton Dellinger might win a surprise victory over Walter Dalton because he was endorsed by most of the major urban black political groups in the state and folks coming out to vote for Barack Obama would choose him too.

But our final poll, which came pretty close to the final outcome, showed Dalton leading 41-24 among black voters.

Where's the disconnect? I think there's a perception that most of the state's black voters live in the urban centers of Durham, Raleigh, Greensboro, Winston-Salem, and Charlotte. But that's not really the case. We broke down our poll this week by whether people considered the place they live to be urban, suburban, rural, or a small town. 17% of African Americans described where they live as urban, really not that different from the 13% overall in the state's population. On the other hand 29% of black voters said they live in a small town, compared to 25% of the state in general.

Dellinger certainly got a ton of black votes in those urban centers- but I'm guessing Dalton did equally well with the ones in small towns and rural areas, and there are actually more of those.

Just something to keep in mind when thinking about the black vote in North Carolina- it's not a monolithic urban entity.