Trump wins NC, White House; Stein retains Governor’s mansion for Democrats

GROWTH & ELECTION 2024; GOVERNMENT

By Adam Powell
Correspondent

NORTH CAROLINA–Republicans enjoyed a big night in Tuesday’s North Carolina presidential and congressional general elections, as the GOP secured the presidential race and 10 of the state’s 14 seats in the United States House of Representatives. But it wasn’t all doom and gloom for Democrats, who retained the Governor’s mansion and multiple other top state executive posts.

In local elections, Chapel Hill residents showed widespread support for a series of bond referendums that will provide additional funding for local housing, public buildings, streets, sidewalks, and more resources for the town’s Parks and Recreation Department. Local residents in Chapel Hill, Carrboro, Hillsborough, and surrounding communities also expressed widespread support for Democratic candidates in local and statewide elections.

Nearly 5.7 million North Carolinians voted (approximately 73% of the state’s registered voters), while nearly 88,000 residents voted in Orange County (better than 77% of the county’s official registered electorate).

Trump to return to Washington

Republican Donald Trump’s victory in the state’s U.S. presidential race over Democrat Kamala Harris and Democrat Josh Stein’s triumph in the gubernatorial showdown with Republican Mark Robinson proved that many North Carolinians were willing to split their ballot this time around.

Trump secured 2,875,538 votes in North Carolina, besting the vice president and Democratic nominee, Kamala Harris, by nearly 200,000 votes. Trump secured 50.95% of the statewide ballot compared to Harris’s 47.56% (2,683,911 votes). It was the third consecutive general election going back to 2016 that Tar Heel State residents chose Trump over his Democratic counterpart.

Early Wednesday morning, Trump was declared the victor of the presidential race, making him the President-elect as the 47th President of the United States.

Trump joins Grover Cleveland as the only person elected to two non-consecutive terms to the nation’s highest office. Cleveland, a Democrat, won the election to the presidency in November 1884 but was beaten in the Electoral College by Benjamin Harrison in 1888 despite winning the popular vote. Cleveland, like Trump, had his revenge the third time around, as Cleveland took the Electoral College and the popular vote in the autumn of 1892 to earn his second four-year term as President of the United States.

Incumbents prevail in U.S. House races

In the U.S. House of Representatives races, incumbents retained nine of the state’s 14 seats: Democrat Don Davis (District 1), Democrat Deborah Ross (District 2), Republican Greg Murphy (District 3), Democrat Valerie Foushee (District 4), Republican Virginia Foxx (District 5), Republican David Rouzer (District 7), Republican Richard Hudson (District 9), Republican Chuck Edwards (District 11), and Democrat Alma Adams (District 12).

Of those races, only Davis’ was close, as he won with 184,993 votes (49.46%) to Republican Laurie Buckhout’s 179,167 votes (47.90%). The remainder of the other eight incumbents retained their seats with at least 56% of the vote, while four of the incumbents earned better than two-thirds of the total vote in their respective districts.

Foushee, Orange County’s representative in Washington, D.C. in the U.S. House of Representatives, earned re-election with 64,597 votes (75.31%), easily besting Republican Eric Blankenburg’s 19,674 votes (22.94%).

Five new Republicans will enter the United States House of Representatives representing North Carolina when the 119th Congress is formally sworn into office on January 3: Addison McDowell (District 6), Mark Harris (District 8), Pat Harrigan (District 10), Brad Knott (District 13), and Tim Moore (District 14). All earned at least 57% of the vote in their respective districts to earn their first two-year terms in Congress.

McDowell will replace Democrat Kathy Manning, while Harris will replace Dan Bishop, who lost Tuesday night in the race for North Carolina Attorney General. Harrigan will replace fellow Republican Patrick McHenry, while Knott will replace Democrat Wiley Nickel. Moore will replace Republican Jeff Jackson, elected as North Carolina Attorney General Tuesday night.

Stein keeps Governor’s mansion in Democratic hands

In the North Carolina Governor’s race, Josh Stein, the state’s Democratic Attorney General, defeated Lieutenant Governor Robinson, his Republican opponent, with a convincing 54.8% margin. Stein collected over 3 million votes across North Carolina to beat Robinson by more than 800,000 votes statewide. Robinson earned just over 2.2 million votes, just over 40% of the total vote. Stein collected 79.87% of the vote for Governor in Orange County, compared to just 16.82% for Robinson.

Democrats also prevailed in the Lieutenant Governor and Attorney General elections, as State Senator Rachel Hunt defeated Republican Hal Weatherman with 49.44% of the vote in the Lieutenant Governor showdown, and Jackson outlasted Bishop in a showdown of U.S. Congressmen with 51.33% of the vote in the Attorney General race. Hunt collected 2,737,528 votes, compared to Weatherman’s 2,643,943, while Jackson earned 2,842,292 votes to Bishop’s 2,695,167 votes.

The only other major statewide races that went Democratic were the Secretary of State election and the battle for North Carolina Superintendent of Public Instruction.

Incumbent Secretary of State Elaine Marshall earned her eighth term in Raleigh by beating Republican Chad Brown in a close race. Marshall edged Brown with 2,806,239 votes (50.94%) to 2,702,257 votes (49.06%). Democrat Mo Green prevailed over Republican candidate Michele Morrow in another close race for the state’s top public education post. Green won with 2,805,973 votes (51.09%) to Morrow’s 2,686,458 votes (48.91%).

Republicans claimed the remainder of the state’s top Council of State positions, with Mike Causey earning re-election as Commissioner of Insurance, Steve Troxler earning another term as Commissioner of Agriculture, and Dave Boliek earning his first term as State Auditor. Troxler won his sixth term with 2,901,019 voters (52.72%), besting Democrat Sarah Taber’s 2,467,944 votes (44.85%). Causey earned a third term as Insurance Commissioner with 2,862,557 votes, beating Democrat Natasha Marcus’s 2,618,904 votes (47.78 percent).

Boilek earned more than 2.7 million votes in the North Carolina Auditor’s race, earning 49.46 % of the total vote. He bested Democrat Jessica Holmes by just over 100,000 votes.

Also earning his first term Tuesday night was Republican Luke Farley, who earned 2,882,169 votes (52.85%) in the North Carolina Commissioner of Labor race, defeating Democrat Braxton Winston II’s 2,571,772 votes (47.15%). Another Republican, Brad Briner, collected 2,877,789 votes to defeat Democrat Wesley Harris by over 275,000 votes for his first term as North Carolina State Treasurer.

Democrats dominate in local legislative, judicial races

Despite her statewide loss in North Carolina, Kamala Harris won Orange County convincingly, taking the county with a healthy 74.51% of the vote (65,094 votes) to Trump’s 23.73% (20,726 votes). Democrats won across the board locally in statewide elections, as Governor-elect Stein picked up a whopping 79.87% of the vote over Robinson in Orange County, while Hunt, Marshall, Green, and Jackson each earned over 75% of the local electorate’s support as well.

In the race for North Carolina State Senate District 23, Democrat Graig Meyer prevailed by a dominant margin in Orange County over Republican opponent Laura Pichardo. Meyer received over 64,000 votes (75.65%), to Pichardo’s 20,616 votes (24.35 percent). Meyer rolled to re-election for his second term to the State Senate with 65.81% of the total district-wide vote.

State Representative Renee Price, a Democrat, ran unopposed in the general election for N.C. House District 50, while Democrat Allen Buansi prevailed in his bid for re-election in District 56 against Republican Jeffrey Hoagland. Buansi earned his second full term in Raleigh with an impressive 86.30% of the total vote.

The local County Commissioners’ races in Orange County were mostly uncontested, as Amy Fowler earned re-election for a second term to her at-large seat with 68.547 votes .Jean Hamilton also earned re-election for a second term to the elected county board with 59,508 votes (54.92%) in District 1, while fellow Democrat and Orange County Planning Board member Marilyn Carter earned election to her first term in District 1 with 48,854 votes (45.08%). With Hamilton and Carter challenging for two open seats, they were able to campaign together throughout the race.

There was one head-to-head battle for a countywide seat in Orange County, as Democrat Phyllis Portie-Ascott earned a full four-year term on the County Commissioners by earning 62,530 votes (74.78%) to best Republican Nathan Robinson’s 21,094 votes (25.22%). In addition, Gail McKee Hughes won the nonpartisan election for Orange County Soil and Water Conservation District Supervisor, earning 64,694 votes (98.07%). Write-in candidates received 1,270 votes, or 1.93%t of the total vote in that particular race.

In Carrboro, Cristobal Palmer easily defeated Isaac Woolsey for a seat on the Carrboro Town Council, winning with 77.46% of the vote.

In local judicial races, Democratic candidates received widespread local support. Allison Riggs earned 76.37% of the local vote as she earned a full term on the North Carolina Supreme Court representing Seat 6. Democrats Carolyn Jennings Thompson, Ed Eldred, and Martin Moore all received over 74% of the vote as they rolled to election in local North Carolina Court of Appeals races.

Four other Democratic judges (Samantha Cabe, Hathaway Pendergrass, Sherri Murrell, and Joal Hall Broun) all ran unopposed for various seats on North Carolina’s District 18 Court.

Chapel Hill residents vote for bonds, Constitutional Amendment  

The Town of Chapel Hill supported the proposed bond referendums, with voters enacting the Housing Bonds Referendum with 72.87% of the vote, the Public Building Bonds Referendum with 71.5% of the vote, the Streets and Sidewalks Bond Referendum with 78.46 % of the vote, and the Open Space Greenways Bond Referendum with 80.80% of the vote.

Orange County voters supported a new school bond referendum, as nearly 56,000 residents (approximately 67.5% of all voters) expressed support for the measure. Orange County voters also narrowly supported a controversial State Constitution ballot measure requiring citizens-only voting. 42,769 residents voted for the Constitutional Amendment (51.57%), while 40,167 residents voted against it (48.43%). In addition, Orange County residents living in Durham successfully voted on bond referendums for Parks and Recreation, along with streets and sidewalks. 

Adam Powell is a reporter on local news and sports and an education communications professional. A 2001 graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill, Powell has served as managing editor of multiple local publications, including the Mebane Enterprise, News of Orange County and TarHeelIllustrated.com. The public information officer for Rockingham County Schools in Eden, N.C., Powell is the author of four books and lives in Mebane with his wife and two children. This reporter can be reached at: Info@TheLocal Reporter.press