Early voting began in North Carolina last week.  While the actual votes will not be tabulated until Election Day, it is possible to observe some trends from initial early voting turnout data.

For instance, over 52% of early voters in North Carolina are registered Democrats, while only 29% are registered Republicans.  This would suggest that democrats are more excited about voting this year than republicans.  On the other hand, when the data is broken into age groups, young people are least likely to vote early: only 13.2% of early voters are in the 18-29 age group, the smallest turnout of any age group.  It is widely held that Senator Obama needs the youth vote, especially in a battleground state like North Carolina.  Of course, Obama won’t need the youth vote if McCain doesn’t get any age groups to vote for him.