Burrus beats Conner; race is tight for state Senate and House seats

In one of Dare County’s most closely watched races, Democrat incumbent Allen Burrus beat unaffiliated candidate Kevin Conner for the Dare County Board of Commissioners District 4 seat, representing Hatteras Island, with 67 percent of the vote to Conner’s 33 percent.

And the other headline from yesterday’s election is that the races for the District 1 seat in the state Senate and the District 6 seat in the state House are too close to call.

The unofficial results, with many provisional ballots not counted, have Democrats leading, but not by much.

Democrat incumbent Stan White is leading Republican Bill Cook in the eight-county District 1 by 388 votes.  White has 42, 833 votes to Cook’s 42,555.

Democratic candidate Paul Tine is leading Republican Mattie Lawson by 453 votes in the four-county District 6.  Tine has 20,564 to Lawson’s 20,111.

These totals are likely to change as provisional ballots are counted.

If the winner gets less than a 1 percent margin, the challenger can ask for a recount.

Republicans swept almost all races at the national, state, and local level in Dare County, while Democrats did somewhat better in Hyde.

Here are some of the other highlights.

Dare County

In the three contested races for the Dare County Board of Commissioners, Burrus was the only Democratic winner.

Republican incumbent Richard Johnson won re-election to the District 1 seat with 53 percent of the vote. Democratic challenger Alfred Jackson has 41 percent of the vote, and write-in candidate Sandy Semans Ross had only 6 percent.

Republican Bob Woodard beat Bob Mueller for the board’s District 2 seat with 54 percent of the vote to Mueller’s 46.

Democrat Warren Judge won the board’s District 3 seat in an uncontested race.

For President and Vice-President, the county went to Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan with 57 percent of the vote.

Republican candidate for governor, Pat McCrory, won easily with 57 percent of the vote also.

Other Republican candidates for statewide office also beat their Democratic opponents.

Stan White beat Bill Cook in Dare County by a percentage of 53 percent to Cook’s 47.

However, Republican Mattie Lawson won Dare County in the state House race.  She had 52 percent of the vote to Tine’s 48.

The turnout in yesterday’s election was 63 percent in Dare County, down from 68 percent in 2008. According to preliminary results from the Dare County Board of Elections, 17,873 voters came to the polls.  There are 28,230 registered voters in the county.

Dare County unofficial election results are available here: http://results.enr.clarityelections.com/NC/Dare/10101/14230/en/summary.html

Hyde County

Democrats won more victories in Hyde County, and Ocracoke was decidedly Democratic in almost all the races.

Democrat John Fletcher II was unopposed for the Ocracoke Township seat on the Hyde County Board of Commissioners.

Democratic incumbent Sharon Spencer lost the Fairfield seat to challenger Earl Pugh, who had 1,262 votes to Spencer’s 1,030.

Unaffiliated incumbent Anson Byrd beat challenger Lindsey Mooney III for the Lake Landing Township seat.

Both Stan White and Paul Tine won victories by large margins in Hyde.  White won with 1,452 votes to Bill Cook’s 829. Tine won with 1,371 of the votes to Lawson’s 908.

President Barack Obama won 193 votes on Ocracoke to Mitt Romney’s 94.  Obama lost in the countywide vote by a very narrow margin of 1,157 votes to Romney 1,183.

Democrat Walter Dalton also won the vote for governor in Ocracoke Township by 179 votes to Republican Pat McCrory’s 103.  McCrory won the county with 1,229 votes to Dalton’s 1,073.

Hyde County unofficial results are available at http://www.hydecountync.gov/docs/Hyde_unofficial_results.pdf

U.S. House of Representatives District 3

Incumbent Republican Walter Jones once again handily beat his Democratic opponent, who was Erik Anderson in this race, with 63 percent of the vote district-wide to Anderson’s 37 percent. 

Barack Obama and Joe Biden (D) – 41.07%
Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan (R) – 57.16%

Walter Dalton (D) – 39.47%
Pat McCrory (R) – 56.56%

Linda D. Coleman (D) – 44.76%
Dan Forest (R) – 55.24%

Stan White (D) – 53.39%
Bill Cook (R) – 46.61% 

Paul Tine (D) – 48.42%
Mattie Lawson 51.58%

Alfred Lee Jackson (D) – 41.36%
Richard Johnson (R)  – 52.74%
Sandy Semans Ross (Write-in) – 5.90%

Bob Mueller (D) –  45.59%
Bob Woodard  (R) –  54.41%

Warren Judge (D) – 100.00%

Allen Burrus (D)  – 66.78%
Kevin Conner (Unaffiliated) –  33.22%