Michael Taffe

UNC System Board of Governors members’ political contributions show conservative ties

Contributions from members of the UNC System's Board of Governors show significant donations to a variety of sources over the past two years, from North Carolina's 2020 U.S. Senate race to small local races. These contributions are overwhelmingly to Republicans — indicating a conservative partisan slant among the body.

Farewell column: News, numbers and the mayor of North Carolina

"I’ll always be proud of our newsroom’s pursuit of serving not just the campus community, but the town and state as a whole."

Despite higher 2020 turnout, fewer N.C. voters reported their race, political party

“We’ve got a lot more voters who have not indicated their race or ethnicity," politics professor Michael Bitzer said. "Back in 2016, for all of the absentee ballots, it was a little more than three percent unknown. Now it is around nine percent. We have no way to know for those hundreds of thousands of voters, what their race or ethnicity is.”   

College voters leveraged their voting power, turned out in record numbers

College students took advantage of early voting at significantly higher rates this election — youth turnout in early and mail-in voting more than doubled compared to 2016. 

Here's where N.C. General Assembly candidates from college towns stand on the issues

The Daily Tar Heel worked with six other student newsrooms across North Carolina to profile every General Assembly candidate in Orange, Mecklenburg, Wake, Guilford, Pitt, Durham and Watauga county.  We asked every candidate five questions about issues students told us they cared about, and summarized their responses in the map below. 

Where are the COVID-19 cases on UNC's campus?

The Daily Tar Heel's Data Editor Michael Taffe has created an interactive graphic displaying the location of COVID-19 cases reported by UNC, as well as information on testing, reported cases per week and capacity in isolation and quarantine dorms.

We looked into the COVID-19 relief loan data for Chapel Hill and Carrboro

The Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) was funded by the CARES Act relief package in March of this year. The program provides loans to qualifying businesses to cover up to two months of payroll expenses. Applications were reopened on Monday, and the new deadline to apply for a Paycheck Protection Program loan is August 8.

The First 90 Days: How North Carolina's coronavirus policies tracked with the outbreak

With over 24,000 cases in the state, many officials are assessing the effects of containment policies and are having to choose which metrics are best to determine the spread of COVID-19. Pan through this interactive timeline of North Carolina's COVID-19 outbreak and policy responses.

'Living inside a bubble': How N.C. voters broke along lines of income and education

With competitive elections for nearly every office in the state on the ballot this fall, two counties on opposite sides of the state with differing population dynamics serve as examples of a greater statewide trend.  Between the 2012 and 2016 elections, North Carolina counties' vote shift tracked with their median income and education level u2014 counties with higher income and education levels tended to shift towards the Democratic Party and counties experiencing more poverty shifted their vote towards the Republican Party.

Here's how COVID-19 changed life in the University and state over the course of a month

The University, city and state have seen dramatic changes over the past month due to the COVID-19 pandemic. From classes going remote and campus shutting down to North Carolina residents being directed to stay at home, coronavirus and the related restrictions impact nearly every aspect of people's daily lives. From the first case in North Carolina to a statewide stay-at-home order and everything in between, here's how COVID-19 has impacted UNC, Chapel Hill and North Carolina so far.  

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PruittHealth - Carolina Point is one of the long-term care facilities in Orange County that has been affected by COVID-19. It has seen 60 cases of COVID-19.

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A recount completed on Thursday, Nov. 21, 2019 officially confirmed UNC senior Tai Huynh has taken incumbent Nancy Oates' seat in the race for Chapel Hill Town Council. 

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