The vote goal
What it takes to win, worked out from turnout in your actual district instead of a rule of thumb somebody repeated to you.
If we cannot measure it, we say so rather than guess.
Real campaign tools for county races.
Sheriff, school board, county commission, register of deeds. Nobody builds software for these seats, so most candidates run on a spreadsheet somebody made in March. Competitive Campaigns gives a North Carolina campaign the voter file, a vote goal it can defend, and the lists volunteers actually carry.
Every account starts locked. We review before opening it, usually within a couple of days. We build this for Democratic and progressive campaigns.
- Vote goalWhat it takes to win your seat
- Voter listsCut 9.2M registrants down to your people
- Walk sheetsPaper for the doors, CSV for everything else
- PrecinctsWhere your people are, and who turns out
- CandidatesWho else filed against you
- Ask the dataAsk in English, get the SQL back too
Tell us the office and district when you sign up. After that every screen is your race rather than the whole state.
Our data
Where the numbers come from
We use the public files North Carolina publishes. Here is what we use and what we do with it. You do not need an account to read this.
9,203,238Registered voters
Every registered voter in North Carolina, all 100 counties. Counted 9 August 2026.
35,525,793Vote history records
Who turned out in which past election, straight from the state file. The file records who voted, never how they voted. Counted 9 August 2026.
Two public filesWhere the data comes from
The North Carolina voter registration file and the voter history file. The State Board of Elections publishes both as public record under N.C.G.S. 163-82.10.
NightlyHow often we refresh it
We pull the state files every night. Every number on the screen shows the date we loaded it.
No consumer data. No guessed politics. No bought phone numbers or email addresses. Every file we use, you could download yourself.
Measured
Your district has a turnout record of its own. The number comes from that, and we list the elections it came from.
Estimate
Your district has nothing comparable to measure. We work from districts that do, and the word estimate follows the number everywhere it goes.
No number
Neither one is available. You get a blank space and a reason, rather than a number nobody measured.
Which of the three you got sits next to the number, every time it appears.
The problem
Nobody hands a county candidate a plan.
No one will tell you the number.
Ask what a sheriff's race takes and you get a range, a shrug, or a figure from the last cycle that nobody has checked since. It is the first line of any campaign plan and the hardest thing to get straight.
The file is free, which is the problem.
North Carolina publishes all of it. Nine million registrants, dozens of columns, and vote history in a separate download you have to join yourself. Getting it takes a minute. Making it useful takes a weekend and some SQL.
The good tools are priced for statewide.
A Senate campaign buys targeting. A school board race working with four figures gets whatever a volunteer can build in Excel, plus a list of every registered voter in the county.
A county race can turn on a few hundred votes, which is why it matters a great deal which doors you spend August on.
What you get
Built for a campaign with no data person.
The four things you need settled before anyone knocks a door.
Voter lists and walk sheets
Cut the file by party, age, precinct, how reliably someone votes, and about twenty other fields. Export it, or print it and hand it to a volunteer.
Same list for the doors and the phones.
Precinct targeting
Every precinct in your district, who lives in it, and how reliably they turn out. Useful when you are deciding where Saturday goes.
Turf, in turnout order.
Questions in plain English
Type the question in English. How many unaffiliated women aged 25 to 45 live in my district. You get a number, and the SQL we ran to get it.
Check our work. That is the point.
How it works
From signing up to a walk list.
Four steps. Only the review takes any time, because a person does it.
Create an account
Email and password, or Google or Apple. Under a minute, no card.
We review it
A person reads every request, usually inside a couple of days. We open accounts for Democratic and progressive candidates, their staff and their volunteers.
Pick your race
Tell us the office and the district. After that every screen is your race, not the whole state.
Work the list
Read the vote goal and how we got there, cut the universe you want, and take the walk list out the door.
Who it is for
The seats this covers.
County and state legislative offices. All partisan in North Carolina, which means party registration is already sitting on the file for every voter.
- Sheriff
- District attorney
- Clerk of superior court
- Register of deeds
- County commission
- School board
- NC House
- NC Senate
Access and pricing
Signup is open. Access is not.
We build this for Democratic and progressive campaigns.
Candidates, their staff, and their volunteers. Those are the accounts we open. Anyone can sign up, but we will not approve a conservative campaign. We would rather say so here than leave you waiting on a review.
Open to read
Published on this site, with no account and no email address.
- Which files the numbers come from, and the law that makes them public
- How turnout is measured and how vote propensity is scored
- When the product refuses to give a number, and why
- The Terms of Service and the Privacy Policy in full
Behind an approved account
Everything worked out for your specific race.
- The vote goal for your own race
- Precinct-level breakdowns and propensity by district
- Voter lists filtered to your universe, exportable as CSV
- Printable walk sheets and call lists
- What it costs
- Nothing today. We are not charging anyone yet, and we will tell you before that changes.
- How access is granted
- Every account starts locked. We open it after the review, or right away if we gave you an access code.
- Leaving
- Close your account from settings whenever you want. Your campaigns and lists go with it.
Questions
Questions we get.
What candidates want to know before they hand over an email address.
What is Competitive Campaigns?
Competitive Campaigns is campaign software for Democratic and progressive candidates running county and legislative races in North Carolina. It works out what your seat takes to win, cuts the state voter file into lists your volunteers can carry, ranks your precincts, and tracks who else filed against you. Every figure says where it came from.
How many votes does it take to win a local race?
It depends entirely on how many people turn out in your district, which is why every rule of thumb you have been given is wrong somewhere. We divide ballots cast by people registered, across up to the last four comparable elections in your district, and work forward from there. No comparable record in your district, and the number is labelled an estimate. No honest basis at all, and we show nothing.
Can any candidate sign up?
Anyone can sign up. Not every account gets opened. We build this for Democratic and progressive campaigns in North Carolina and those are the ones we approve, so we will not open an account for a conservative campaign. Better to say that here than leave you waiting on a review that was never going your way.
What can I read without an account?
Where the data comes from, how turnout is measured, how the participation score works, and the cases where we refuse to give a number at all. What needs an account is anything about your race in particular: the vote goal for your seat, precinct breakdowns, and anything you can export.
What does it cost?
Nothing. Nobody is being charged while we find out whether this is any use, and you will hear from us before that changes.
Where does the voter data come from?
Every record comes from two files the North Carolina State Board of Elections publishes as public record under N.C.G.S. 163-82.10: the registration file and the vote history file. Nothing is bought from a data broker and nothing about a voter is inferred beyond what the state itself publishes. The history file records that someone voted. It has never recorded how.
What is a vote propensity score?
It counts how many of the basis elections a voter actually turned out for, read straight from their own record in the state file. The basis is currently four elections, so a 4 has voted every time and a 0 in none of them. The denominator follows whatever the basis is, and the screen always shows you which.
Which offices does it cover?
Sheriff, district attorney, clerk of superior court, register of deeds, county commission, school board, NC House and NC Senate. County and legislative seats, which is to say the races that almost never come with a data budget.
Get started
Find out what your race takes.
Sign up and tell us what you are running for. A person reads every request, and you hear back either way.
Every account starts locked. We review before opening it, usually within a couple of days. We build this for Democratic and progressive campaigns.
Questions first? support@competitivecampaigns.com