A lot to unwrap from last night…
There is already a lot of good election reporting from the Daily Tar Heel and Chapelboro.
I’m going to mostly focus on the local races today with a couple of forays into the State Wide races
Orange County Commissioners races:
Some expected outcomes and one mild surprise.
At-Large seat: There was no incumbent in this race as Sally Greene had announced she was not running for re-election.
Carrboro resident Karen Stegman handily won over Adam Beeman
- Karen Stegman 20,382 77.17%
- Adam Beeman 6,029 22.83%
District 1:
Probably not a big surprise. Incumbent Jamezetta Bedford won over challenger Maria Palmer
- Jamezetta Bedford 9,036 57.15%
- Maria T. Palmer 6,774 42.85%
District 2:
District 2 is where we had (at least to me) a bit of a surprise)
First time challenger Beth Bronson squeaked past long standing incumbent Earl McKee
- Beth Bronson 5,478 50.15%
- Earl McKee 5,446 49.85%
This will be my first reminder of why it is important to go out and vote! Bronson beat McKee by only 32 votes.
The Carrborean editor, Jennifer Yourkavitch and I interviewed the At-Large , District 1, Register of Deeds and Sherriff candidates before the election. The Carrborean did not interview District 2 as the paper’s focus is strictly Carrboro. You can still find the transcripts and the audio of those WCOM interviews here
Orange County Sheriff
This one got a bit ugly and garnered some attention as an out of state PAC brought some money into this race, to the tune of over $40,000. A word about PACs: A candidate really has no control over whether a PAC comes in and produces postcards and signs. My point is it is actually illegal for a PAC to coordinate with a candidate and I have no information whether that occurred or not.
Tammy Grubb from the N&O published this free article covering some of what went down.
- Charles Blackwood 16,365 58.41%
- David LaBarre 11,651 41.59%
US House of Representatives, District 04.
If you didn’t get any mailers on this heavily contested and funded race, I want to know your secret. This race was tight and The Daily Tar Heel is reporting that Nida Allam is asking for a recount
UPDATE: The same day, the Daily Tar Heel reported than Allam has conceded the election. Read about it here
OK, remember how I told you how voting matters and that every vote matters? Well, take a look at this race!
Many of us were crossing our fingers that Phil Berger would get ousted. We still don’t know if we got our wish (and his opponent isn’t exactly a ray of sunshine, but he isn’t Berger, and he will have rookie power In the house if he were to get elected in November).
But look at the result- TWO VOTES. This will certainly get recounted and who knows when this race will be fully confirmed, there will be a lot that needs to happen before this result gets certified . The Assembly has published a short piece about what happens next here.
Orange County Register of Deeds.
We interviewed one of the contestants in this race. One of the questions asked was why we VOTE for the Register of Deeds, you can find out here. Former Town Council Member, and County Commissioner Penny Rich lost out to long time staffer at the Register of Deeds, Amy McLamb. This contest did not have an incumbent as Mark Chilton decided to not run for re-election.
- Amy Jo McLamb 14,712 55.80%
- Penny Rich 11,653 44.20%
Finally, the last contest we will mention is the Orange County Schools Board of education. Here are the top 4 vote getters for the race
- Sarah Smylie 8,422 20.76%
- Anne Purcell 7,924 19.53%
- Lori Russell 7,606 18.75%
- Will Atherton 7,480 18.44%