NC voters want candidates to concede elections they lost.

USA Today

06-02-2025

North Carolinians by a wide margin want the losers in elections to concede the race, a new poll shows. And they feel stronger in that opinion than just a few months ago, according to a YouGov poll sponsored by Catawba College and Western Carolina University.
The poll comes as Jefferson Griffin continues to legally challenge the outcome of his race for the North Carolina Supreme Court months after the Nov. 5 election. After a recount, the Republican state appeals court judge lost to Allison Riggs, the Democratic incumbent state Supreme Court associate justice, by 734 votes out of more than 5.5 million cast.
OpinionPitts: NC Supreme Court candidate Griffin has gone too far
Griffin's challenge follows a trend across the nation where some losing candidates refuse to concede that they lost. President Trump still does not accept his 2020 loss to former President Joe Biden.
North Carolina voters confident in our elections
Dr. Michael Bitzer, a political science professor at Catawba College, presented the findings during the final meeting of the cross-partisan Commission on the Future of NC Elections, of which I am a part. The meeting was held Tuesday at the Center for the Environment on the college's campus in Salisbury.
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The poll, which had 1,500 respondents, did not specifically ask about the Griffin-Riggs race but asked: 'How important do you think it is for losing candidates to publicly accept the winning candidates as legitimate?' In August, 84% of people thought this to be very or somewhat important; the figure rises to 91% in the new poll.
'It was pretty much consistent across the partisan identifications,' Bitzer said.
For Republican voters, the figure rose from 79% in August to 91% now. For Democrats, the number went from 84% to 91%.
The poll also found that North Carolina voters generally have confidence in the way the state conducts elections and feel even more confident after the election than before. The poll asked how confident voters are in the 'safety, security and integrity' of North Carolina elections, regardless of whether their candidate wins or loses.
In August, 71% said they were very or somewhat confident. In the latest poll, the number jumped to 80%.
Bitzer said the question is at the heart of what the commission has worked on for the past year-and-a-half.
But he said before he presented the findings: 'We should think about these results as being informative, not definitive. This is kind of informing us about the perspectives, particularly from August to January.'
The commission is a project of the N.C. Network for Fair, Safe & Secure Elections, a partnership between Catawba College and The Carter Center as part of its national and international efforts to nourish democracy. North Carolina is one of six states with similar Carter Center-sponsored efforts, and the spirit of the commission's work will continue with a permanent program at the college, the Center for North Carolina Politics and Public Service.
Young people's voting in 2024 in NC trailed other voters
Tuesday, commission members presented their final report on 11 different areas of the state's elections from ballot security to early voting to mail-in ballots to voting access and education.
We talked a lot about young people's voting in 2024 in North Carolina, which trailed everyone else. In the November election, just over 57% of people who are 18 to 25 voted, according to the North Carolina State Board of Elections. That figure is below those for 26-40 (61.1%), 41-65 (79%) and 66+ (83%).
Commission member suggested several reasons for younger voters' patterns: polarized party politics; a sense that voting won't change things; a preference among young people to try to effect change through means other than voting, like protests; and even despair over large-scale issues like climate change and the economic future.
'I'm hearing more and more from students, 'I don't see a system where things get done,'' he said. 'These are the children of polarized politics. When they don't see action being done, they often say, 'I will pursue other means by which to engage in my society other than the traditional political participation.'
NC commission member: STEM students aren't voting as well
Leslie Garvin, who works with college-age voters as part of her director's role with North Carolina Campus Engagement, noted, however, that for college students, voter participation in North Carolina was up.
'If you look at the data from 10, 15, 20 years ago, our highest turnout was in 2008,' she said. 'But before that, it was even lower. So, it actually, this year rebounded. In the beginning, we didn't think it was going to.'
Garvin said that while the focus is often on college-aged voters, those young people not in college are driving nonvoting patterns.
As for college students, she said their voting patterns align with specific disciplines.
'We're finding STEM students aren't voting,' she said.
She said that international students are often the most committed leaders to campuswide voting turnout efforts — even though they cannot vote in the U.S.
But: 'They care about democracy,' she said. 'So, they're mobilizing other students to vote.'
Opinion Editor Myron B. Pitts can be reached at [e-mail].