The North Carolina FreeEnterprise Foundation’s analysis of early voting note that the share of registered Democrats casting early ballots this year is down 3.7 percentage points from 2008, with much of the slack being picked up by unaffiliated voters.

While not every Democrat casting an early ballot will vote for Barack Obama, it’s worth noting that with 2.7 million early/absentee ballots cast by Saturday, that 3.7 percent amounts to nearly 100,000 fewer Democrats voting this year than four years ago.

Obama won North Carolina in 2008 by 14,000 votes. Make of it what you will.