Charlotte · the strongest Democratic and Republican presidential performances recorded here, measured three ways.
1892–2024 · 34 presidential cycles
Highest vote share
Largest share of the presidential candidate vote cast here.
Democratic
Franklin D. Roosevelt1936
73.9%
172,242 votes · D+47.8
Runner-up · Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1940 · 73.6%
Republican
Richard Nixon1972
70.5%
321,762 votes · R+42.6
Runner-up · Ronald Reagan, 1984 · 66.2%
Most votes
Largest number of votes cast for the party’s presidential nominee here.
Democratic
Kamala Harris2024
810,628votes
44.7% of the vote · R+9.0
Runner-up · Joe Biden, 2020 · 798,847 votes
Republican
Donald Trump2024
972,799votes
53.7% of the vote · R+9.0
Runner-up · Donald Trump, 2020 · 926,602 votes
Best relative to the U.S.
This Place’s margin against the national margin in the same election — positive when it leaned toward the party more than the country did.
Democratic
Alton B. Parker1904
+47.2pts D vs U.S.
Place D+27.5 · U.S. R+19.7
Runner-up · John W. Davis, 1924 · +46.5 pts
Republican
George W. Bush2000
+20.3pts R vs U.S.
Place R+19.8 · U.S. D+0.5
Runner-up · Richard Nixon, 1972 · +19.5 pts
U.S. House elections · 3 House
Senate and governor results are in the Office selector at the top of this page.
U.S. House
On a multi-state Place, each row sums votes cast in the separate U.S. House races held inside the Place that year. It is a geographic vote total, not one contest or a seat tally.
Charlotte · how this place’s counties split between candidates in each party’s presidential nominating contest, cycle by cycle. A primary is a contest inside one party, so it has no Democratic–Republican margin and is not part of the general-election record above.
Akashic reports votes cast, not delegates awarded. The two can disagree: Clinton led the 2008 national primary popular vote by less than half a point and did not win the nomination.
Primary returns are published at county grain and there is no roll-up above it. Each cell counts how many of this place’s counties a candidate led — a count of records, not a vote total. Who led the place as a whole is not knowable from these returns, because county rows carry a leader and a lead but no per-candidate votes.
Presidential nominating contests in Charlotte, by party and cycle.
Party
2008
2012
2016
2020
2024
Democratic
Clinton13Obama9393,878 votes · 22 of 22 countiesprimary
○no contest record
Clinton20Sanders2272,968 votes · 22 of 22 countiesprimary
Biden21Sanders1352,258 votes · 22 of 22 countiesprimary
○no contest record
Republicannot ingested
○no contest record
○no contest record
○no contest record
○no contest record
○no contest record
○no contest record — Akashic holds no result for that party and cycle here. It is not a claim that no contest was held. Telling apart a contest that was cancelled, one that went uncontested, and one simply not yet ingested needs a nominating-contest calendar, which is a separate ingest from results and does not exist yet.
Republican presidential primaries are not yet ingested — the Republican series runs from 1856 and is in scope. The row is kept so its absence is visible: a Democratic-only panel would otherwise read as though no one else held a contest.
Akashic carries 10 states for 2012 and 3 states for 2024. Cycles in which an incumbent president seeks renomination are thin by nature — few states run a contested primary — so a sparse column is politics, not a hole in the record.
County returns carry a leader and a lead over the runner-up, and nothing more. The full candidate field with vote shares is published at state grain — follow a cycle above to the state contest for it.
voter registration
Registered voters
By party of registration, over time
Party registration · 2012D+4.3
vs
Presidential vote · 2024R+9.0
Charlotte registers Democratic but votes Republican — a 13-point gap between how voters register and how they vote, the signature of ancestral registration that trails realignment.
DemocraticRepublicanUnaffiliatedOther parties
† Some years predate full county coverage; a flagged year sums only the counties reporting it.
Voter registration in Charlotte
Year
Total registered
Democratic
Republican
Unaffiliated
Other
2008 (partial)
1,657,633
674,228
597,631
384,769
1,005
2012 (partial)
1,799,433
699,217
621,590
473,465
5,161
domestic migration
Who moves in and out
Net domestic migration over time
+31,417 net domestic migration · 2025
20112025
Net +404,023 over 2011–2025 · gain loss
Domestic migration in Charlotte in Charlotte: net domestic migration by year
Year
Net domestic migration
2011
+13,569
2012
+17,719
2013
+22,200
2014
+23,483
2015
+29,514
2016
+35,263
2017
+35,312
2018
+29,861
2019
+30,862
2021
+32,764
2022
+36,535
2023
+35,152
2024
+30,372
2025
+31,417
The Charlotte DMA spans the Carolina Piedmont and has added nearly a million residents since 2010, making its fast-growing outer suburbs among the most closely watched bellwether zones in statewide contests for both North and South Carolina.
Across the recorded series it reached a Democratic high of 54.6 points in 1912 and a Republican high of 42.6 points in 1972. Between 2020 and 2024 the market moved 1.7 points toward the Republican candidate; the 2024 margin was 9.0 points.
A population of 3,488,246, a 61% non-Hispanic-white share, and a median household income of $79,152 describe the market. The market's voting pattern over the last decade is most similar to that of Atlanta and Greensboro-High Point-Winston-Salem.
Akashic
Political twins — media markets
The media markets whose fingerprint — 2000–2024 trajectory, demographics, ancestry, religion — sits closest to this one, and why.
Twin score (0–100) = weighted cosine between tier-standardized fingerprints: presidential margins 2000–2024 with 12-yr trend and elasticity, ACS income, age, education, population and race, top reported ancestries, and religious adherence — chips name the closest-shared dimensions and the widest gap. Re-weight the groups in the twins explorer.
Compare two places, side by side
Twelve curated comparisons line up election history, demographics, and the divergence story for two places at a glance. Browse all comparisons →
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All citations released under CC BY 4.0. Attribution: Akashic Intelligence.
Charlotte, North Carolina. Akashic. https://akashic.app/dma/517/. Accessed May 20, 2026. License: CC BY 4.0.
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In 2024, Charlotte, North Carolina voted Republican by 9.0 points (R+9.0), carried by the Republican candidate. Out of 1,811,802 votes cast, 810,628 went Democratic and 972,799 went Republican.
When did Charlotte, North Carolina last vote Democratic?
The most recent presidential election in which Charlotte, North Carolina voted Democratic was 1976.
How many people live in Charlotte, North Carolina?
Charlotte, North Carolina has a population of 3,488,246 according to the 2024 American Community Survey 5-year estimates from the US Census Bureau.
What is the median household income in Charlotte, North Carolina?
Median household income in Charlotte, North Carolina is $79,152 — below the national median of $80,734. The North Carolina state median is $72,388.
What is the political history of Charlotte, North Carolina?
Akashic tracks 34 presidential elections in Charlotte, North Carolina from 1892 to 2024. Of those, 16 went Democratic and 18 went Republican.
