Watauga County, North Carolina

• White (non-Hispanic) 48,766 88.5%
• Hispanic or Latino (any race) 3,410 6.2%
• Black or African American (non-Hispanic) 873 1.6%
• Asian (non-Hispanic) 487 0.9%
• Two or more races (non-Hispanic) 1,474 2.7%
• American Indian / Alaska Native (non-Hispanic) 73 0.1%
• Native Hawaiian / Pacific Islander (non-Hispanic) 0 0.0%
• Some other race (non-Hispanic) 40 0.1%

• Under 18 6,676 12.1%
• 18–24 17,338 31.5%
• 25–44 10,481 19.0%
• 45–64 11,193 20.3%
• 65 and over 9,435 17.1%

Median household income

$58,832

90% interval $53,758–$63,906

−$15,223 vs NC · 63rd of 100

Below poverty line

20.8%

90% interval 18.3%–23.3%

+8.2 pp vs NC · 9th of 100

Unemployment (12-mo)

3.4%

−0.36 pp vs. state

County GDP

$3.2B

0.38% of state

Avg. annual pay

$51,186

Establishments

1,907

• Education & health services 8,957 36.4%
• Leisure & hospitality 4,845 19.7%
• Trade, transportation & utilities 4,383 17.8%
• Professional & business services 1,681 6.8%
• Construction 1,131 4.6%
• Financial activities 1,042 4.2%
• Public administration 980 4.0%
• Other services 699 2.8%
• Information 22 0.1%

The sectors listed cover 96.5% of covered employment; BLS withholds the rest to avoid disclosing individual employers.

Home ownership

62.1%

−4.5 pp vs NC · 87th of 100

Median gross rent

$1,127

−$101 vs NC · 26th of 100

Owner-occupied

13,157

Renter-occupied

8,041

• Concentrated

  Top three sectors employ 74% of the county workforce. Most panelists likely share employer relationships within these sectors, surface those connections early in voir dire before any institutional-defendant or sector-specific framing.

• Moderate wage spread

  Highest-paid sector (Professional & business services, $70,284/yr) pays 2.8× the lowest (Leisure & hospitality, $24,964/yr). Expect meaningful income variation across the panel.

• Mixed business scale

  Average establishment employs 13 workers, a mix of institutional employers and small businesses. Both employed-by-large-institution and small-business-owner perspectives are likely on the panel.

• Democratic 17,225 52.3%
• Republican 15,254 46.3%
• Other / third-party 455 1.4%

• Spanish 2,164 4.0%
• Russian, Polish, or other Slavic 278 0.5%
• Korean 79 0.1%
• Chinese 63 0.1%
• Arabic 57 0.1%
• German or other West Germanic 44 0.1%
• Vietnamese 41 0.1%
• French, Haitian, or Cajun 31 0.1%
• Tagalog 5 0.0%

Households

21,198

Family households

10,839

51.1% of households

Married couples w/ children

2,667

24.6% of families

Single-mother families

721

6.7% of families

Veterans

2,150

4.4% of civilians 18+

• Evangelical Protestant 13,803 25.5%
• Mainline Protestant 5,852 10.8%
• Catholic 1,956 3.6%
• Other (non-Christian + minor traditions) 829 1.5%
• Black Protestant 700 1.3%
• Orthodox 55 0.1%

Health insured

90.7%

±1.4 pp

Uninsured

9.3%

±1.4 pp

67th of 100

With a disability

12.2%

±1.3 pp

91st of 100

Bachelor's or higher

48.1%

±3.2 pp

+12.4 pp vs NC · 6th of 100

Uninsured, under 65 (2024)

10.8%

90% interval 9.5%–12.1% · Census SAHIE

The under-65 uninsured rate is not comparable to the ACS insurance figures, which cover all ages.

Trial court

35th Judicial District Superior Court

Judges

2 (Superior Court judges per primary district (general civil + felony criminal jurisdiction); District Court judges (limited jurisdiction) separate. Vintage 2026 nccourts.gov; counts cross-checked against N.C.G.S. § 7A-41.1. Where an urban county (Wake, Mecklenburg, Guilford, Forsyth) is statutorily split into multiple Superior Court districts, all sub-district seats are aggregated under the primary district number used in counties.json. ~109 Superior Court judgeships statewide.)

Court seats

Bakersville, Boone, Burnsville, Marshall, Newland

This judicial district spans multiple counties.

Traffic fatalities

4

8.26 per 100k adults (18+)

Fatal crashes

4