An interesting theory on why Democrats are losing voters

State party chair Anderson Clayton's idea has some merit, but I don't think it really explains what's happening

I’ve been writing a lot lately about the decline in Democratic Party registrations in North Carolina. Sometime in the next few weeks, the balance will finally flip — Republicans are on pace to exceed Democratic registrations this year for the first time in … probably ever.

Spectrum News’s Tim Boyum asked Democratic Party chair Anderson Clayton about this dynamic on his podcast, and Clayton had an interesting theory. She said that because so many counties don’t have competitive elections, that it disincentivizes Democrat-leaning voters from actually registering with the party.

A lot of what my rural Democrats do … is register unaffiliated and they go in and they pull a Republican ballot and they vote for the lesser of two evils in a Republican primary because Democrats don’t have primaries in those areas.

I think this is true to some extent. Some people absolutely do fall in this category. But you can say the same about Republican-leaning voters in urban counties, too, and I think the net…