NCFREE 2024 Ratings Accuracy

NCFREE had an incredible 2024. We hosted regional business roundtable discussions across the state, in Charlotte, Greenville, Raleigh, and Wilmington. NCFREE unveiled a new logo and website, along with key resources like the 2023-2024 Legislative Business Ratings and the Partisan District Scores.

NCFREE’s 2024 events were huge successes. From our intimate fireside chats with top lawmakers, to the first annual Legislative Business Ratings Breakfast, to our marquee Leadership Luncheon – we provided free enterprise leaders with one of a kind opportunities to have valuable discussions while hearing from our state’s top leaders.

Momentum is already building for next year. Many new companies and business leaders began engaging with NCFREE and will remain engaged in 2025.

Now, on to the analysis you’ve all been waiting for— how accurate were the 2024 NCFREE Ratings?

The NCFREE Ratings

As a reminder, the NCFREE Ratings are a multi-faceted, real-time rating for NC’s legislative districts modeled after national organizations such as the Cook Political Report and Sabato’s Crystal Ball. They are designed to help business leaders, the media, and the public understand which state legislative races are in play for either political party.

Here is the short answer: the NCFREE Ratings were 100% accurate.

In the state Senate, the NCFREE Ratings gave a partisan leaning to 49 out of 50 districts, with one “Tossup” district. The districts range from “Tilting” slightly in one direction to being “Safe” Republican or Democratic. The NCFREE Rating in all 49 Senate districts correlated with election outcomes.

In our lone tossup race, Democratic candidate Terence Everitt appears to be the victor by just 128 votes, or 0.11 percent.

In the state House, NCFREE assigned a partisan leaning to 116 out of 120 districts, with four “Tossup” districts. The NCFREE Rating of all 116 House Districts correlated with election outcomes.

We knew getting these right was important, as all eyes were on partisan supermajorities heading into election day.

Democrats and Republicans split the four Tossup districts evenly two-two, with the winners in the four races averaging a 1.52% victory margin.

In summary:

The NCFREE Rating is the live status of the district:

• Tossup, Tilt, Likely, Safe

The Partisan District Score is the partisanship of the district based on recent partisan performances:

• R+4.2, D+26.5, R+13.1, etc.

The Partisan District Scores

NCFREE’s Partisan District Scores (PDS) were unveiled in the fall, and gave valuable insights of each district based on the most representative sample of past election results.

For the 2024 cycle, the PDS data from past elections aligned with election outcomes in 117 out of 120 state House races and 49 out of 50 of the state Senate races. Since the PDS is not a prediction tool, we developed the NCFREE Rating to dig deeper, as described above.

In comparing 2024 election outcomes to the PDS scores, we calculated a ‘margin of error’ that we’ll use to consider future scores. The average PDS margin of error for each district was 2.94% and had a slight Democratic bias of 0.21% (e.g. if the PDS was R+15 for a district and the Republican candidate won by 18 or 12, the margin of error would be 3% in either case).

Sen. Danny Britt, R-Robeson, wins the award for biggest over-performance of the PDS in the Senate, outperforming the NCFREE Rating of the district by 12.16 percent. Even so, NCFREE’s PDS had this district as an R+5.32 and a ‘Likely Republican’ rating.

Similarly, Rep. Jarrod Lowery, R-Robeson, wins the award for biggest over-performance in the state House, outperforming the NCFREE Rating by 20.78 percent. NCFREE’s PDS had this district as an R +8.48 and a ‘Likely Republican’ rating.

These races are difficult to forecast, and, without access to live polling in the district, require analysis of many different factors. Due to popular demand, we unveiled the NCFREE Ratings one week from Election Day to give a succinct look at the districts that mattered most. Moving forward, NCFREE will be refreshing the Partisan District Scores with the new 2024 election data as it becomes available, and with it, we will build a model for updated NCFREE Ratings for the 2026 state legislative races.