Last update for now: Howerton holds on to fifth place over Bowser by 803 votes, with all but provisional ballots in. Provisional ballots would have to account for about 1% or more of ballots to make a difference in this last race. We'll need to wait for more information from the Board of Elections on next steps here.
For what it's worth, in the 2004 general election there were 2,820 provisional ballots, of which 1,790 were approved. That was out of 111,685 total ballots cast. We've had 78,409 cast here. Assuming the same ratio held, we might expect 2,000 or so provisional ballots this time around, with about 1,250 to be approved.
All of which is a long way of saying that it sure looks like Howerton got seat #5 -- joining incumbents Page, Heron and Reckhow and returnee Joe Bowser on the County Commission. But there's still some intrigue possible in this.
Tracey Cline polled 46.4% in the DA's race, beating Freda Black by almost 8,000 votes.
Jonathan Alston holds a 900-odd point lead over Leigh Bordley but only earned 36% of the vote, allowing Bordley to call for a runoff if desired.
We'll have more analysis tomorrow once the precinct-by-precinct results come out.
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The short story of the evening: the Obama coattails appear to have been strong enough to give the Committee significant sway in local races. It's actually interesting how close, relatively speaking, the DA race is, given the near-unanimous support for Cline from local PACs (save for the Friends) and the local press.
Still, Jonathan Alston's first-place (but below significant plurality needed to avoid a runoff) is, as Barry's put it, the story of the night. Alston's never placed beyond also-ran in any race (including taking on Bill Bell for mayor.) I'd be surprised if he survived a runoff against Leigh Bordley, as the turnout picture would be very different.
Similarly, it's interesting that Joe Bowser -- with his controversial history in the Mike Ruffin affair, and his removal as Durham County NAACP head -- would outpace Fred Foster by enough votes as to be safe in the fourth-place seat for the BOCC.
I wouldn't expect to see better data on precinct-by-precinct numbers per candidate until the morning at this rate. (Though kudos to Ashe and crew for bringing out their usual excellence in the election result reporting, even on a night with a tremendous number of votes to count.)
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Make that 716, with Lowes Grove and provisionals remaining.
Don't quote me on this, but I'm assuming provisional votes only count if there's enough of them to make a difference in the outcome of the race. We'll be watching for any announcement from Durham Co. BOE head Mike Ashe as to whether that's the case and, if so, when we'll know how many provisional ballots are out there. As of now, the fifth seat for BOCC seems to be the only one that could be so impacted.
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813 votes separate Howerton (5th place) from Foster (6th place), with Lowes Grove and Monument of Faith remaining, plus provisionals.
Though it's probably obvious from what's below, Tracey Cline will be Durham's next DA, with 46.4% of the vote with 95.2% of precincts reporting.
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In other news, Jonathan Alston has taken the lead over Leigh Bordley for the School Board race, though he is short of the 40% needed to avoid a run-off (assuming Bordley asks for one.)
Barry's called this one dead to rights: The political death of the Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People has been greatly exaggerated, though with the asterisk that this is a most unusual election cycle in terms of turnout.
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Sure enough: with 93.55% of precincts in, Foster has closed within 630 votes of Howerton. The remaining precincts include Lowes Grove and Triangle Church (South) and Monument of Faith (East Durham). That balance should let Howerton hold on, but provisional ballots aren't included. If things are close, those might matter.
Moffitt has been overtaken by Victoria Peterson and sits in eight place. Peterson and Moffitt would both appear to be out of the race, though, trailing by 4,000 votes.
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With 90% of the votes in, there's no real change. The 1,500 votes between Foster and Howerton are intriguing. NCCU, Southern High, Triangle Church, Triangle Presbyterian, Monument of Faith and Evangel Assembly remain outstanding. Four of those precincts are likely Committee strongholds. It's conceivable Foster could outpace Howerton for the fifth seat, though it would be tight if he did.
Should that happen, we could have a very, very interesting BOCC for the next cycle indeed.
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With 86% of precincts in, Bowser appears strong for fourth place, while Howerton, Foster, Moffitt and Peterson are 4,500 votes apart. By our guess, as many as 7,700 voters' choices remain to be counted. Given the makeup of the remaining precincts to report, it seems unlikely that Moffitt or Peterson have a chance of catching up. The real race may be between Howerton and Foster for the fifth seat, as just 1,500 votes separate the two.
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As soon as the precinct-by-precinct votes are in -- and that will take a while, I'm guessing, given the high vote totals -- it will be interesting to see how various geographies contributed to the BOCC and School Board races. My assumption going into tonight, based on early voting results, was that many African-American voters would choose more than three candidates, helping the PA/Indy/H-S endorsees Moffitt and Howerton. So far, it looks like only Howerton's gotten that benefit. The strong showing by Victoria Peterson may mean that her awareness in the community helped her to significant votes that crowded out Moffitt and other candidates, even without the Committee endorsement.
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Tracy Cline now has a 6,000 vote lead over Black, and at 46% of the vote, that's enough to gain a substantial plurality and avoid a run-off, as of now.
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Ginny and Barry are close to calling the BOCC a done deal. I'm edging there myself, though there are a range of precincts remaining. The remaining precincts include both urban and rural areas, which would seem to imply more Bowser, Foster and Page votes along with more for Howerton and Moffitt. If the picture doesn't change soon, we stand to have a very interesting BOCC next cycle indeed.
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My math may have been off earlier: we actually still may have as many as 63,000 votes to go with 77.4% in. We could end up with 270,000+ votes cast in the BOCC race. 5,000 votes separate fourth through eighth place, with Peterson hanging on to eighth. (Again, a lot for these numbers depends on how many votes come in from the remaining districts.)
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Among the precincts we're waiting for: Morehead Montessori, Durham Co. Ag Building; Bahama, Southern High and Bethesda; Shephard Magnet School; several South Durham and East Durham churches; NCCU; Lowes Grove Baptist.
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To answer Samantha's question: yes, all the early voting precincts are included in these numbers. Barry is reporting that School Board looks to be going to a runoff.
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After the initial flurry of precincts, the last ones are trickling in one by one. The BOCC and School Board races remain too close to call. Cline's lead on Black remains 5,500 votes.
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With 70% of precincts in, about 5,000 votes separate fourth through seventh place: Bowser, Howerton, Foster, and Moffitt in that order. That should leave 58,600 votes to count, assuming even turnout. Given that rural and suburban districts remaining, if the actual number of remaining votes falls much lower than that, Bowser and/or Foster have a decent shot of a seat. Strong turnout in the remaining districts likely to help Howerton and Moffitt.
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Another interesting race: Leigh Bordley leads Jonathan Alston by just about 2,000 points, 36.5% to 33.6%. Nancy Cox is close with 29.3%. The strength of Alston either portents big changes as more precincts come in (since Alston is not expected, with only the Committee endorsement, to do well in South and North Durham), or to disproportionately high turnout in the Committee strongholds.
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With 68% of precincts in, the Tracey Cline/Freda Black race for DA looks tighter than predicted, with Cline holding 45.6% of the vote to Black's 35.1%. The characteristics of the remaining precincts will have a lot to say about the final outcome here.
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If I understand the rules on substantial plurality right, eight of the ten candidates (all but Parker and Wright) are above the threshold so far (defined as total votes cast divided by five times 40%), which makes a run-off unlikely at this point. First five past the polls should be good enough to move to November.
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First numbers, with 63% of precincts reporting:
- Page 27,512 15%
- Heron 25,789 14%
- Reckhow 25,292 14%
- Howerton 18,429 10%
- Bowser 18,281 10%
- Foster 16,152 9%
- Moffitt 15,978 9%
- Peterson 14,687 8%
- Parker 13,394 7%
- Wright 7,202 4%
Still many outstanding precincts, including many rural/non-City precincts. Surprise so far is Bowser and Foster ahead of Moffitt. The top and bottom three match the early-voting polling we did on Saturday.
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The Durham Co. BOE web site is starting to show precincts coming in, though no actual numbers yet. One concern had been whether long lines at precincts might mean that results would be late, but look like two-thirds of precincts are now showing "green," or in. Should be first numbers in a moment.
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The first results should be posted soon. If recent elections are any indications, around 8pm we should have a first look at numbers from the first precincts to return. We'll have those when they come up, though these numbers won't mean too much outside the context of which precincts are reporting, given the likely regional variances in support for candidates.
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We're liveblogging tonight's Durham County primary results, on which the next four years' Board of County Commissioners and District Attorney offices depend. We're coming to you from the home of one of the nation's elite universities, where Gothic architecture and brilliant minds coexist with a socioeconomically diverse town working to continue its transformation from an industrial power to a knowledge-base economy, with the ensuing occasional town-gown struggles.
But, er, we're not in Durham. Work obligations mean tonight's results are coming live from New Haven, Conn., home of Yale University. Thanks to the magic of the Internet, we'll have the primary results as they come in from the Board of Elections.
Ginny Skalski from NBC 17 is liveblogging from the heart of the action, the County Commission chambers where the results will be announced live. Barry is liveblogging from an undisclosed location (like Dick Cheney, he moves about frequently to provide continuity of Bull City blogging in the event of a terrorist strike.)
Refresh us all frequently to catch the latest. We'll have updates here with the newest items at the top of the post.
Do these results include the early voting? I can't tell from the Durham county board of elections Web site...
Posted by: Samantha | May 06, 2008 at 08:31 PM
actually, Kevin, i'm at the courthouse right now, and i have to say, that these results definitely demonstrate that the Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People remain a force to reckon with in Durham politics.
The Alston and Bowser showings are proof of that.
Posted by: barry | May 06, 2008 at 08:41 PM
Shocker of the night so far is that Victoria Peterson is getting almost as many votes as Don Moffitt.
And could somebody please tell the Durham Board of Elections webmaster to lose the !@#$%^& autoscrolling already?
Posted by: David McMullen | May 06, 2008 at 08:45 PM
Thanks for the clarification on the early voting precincts - I see now where to find them on the Web site (autoscroll issues earlier).
Posted by: Samantha | May 06, 2008 at 08:54 PM
I would not make the mistake of attributing the election of local black candidates automatically to the “power” of the Durham Committee. Not all black candidates are affiliated with the Committee. Some have a strong support base of their own and accept their Committee endorsement less than enthusiastically – and the winners tonight all fall solidly into this category. In addition, there are a number of power bases beyond the Durham Committee that can propel African-American candidates to victory in Durham – as was evidenced in the tumultuous school board race of several years ago when the Durham Committee candidates were soundly defeated by black candidates supported by a number of African-American churches here in Durham. Tonight’s results showed similar strength in the power of local churches to affect the outcome of local elections – an outcome that, in my opinion, actually showed a weakening of power over black voters by the Durham Committee in its present regime.
Why? First of all, the huge wave of black voters who went to the polls today can be credited to the black churches and their GOTV work -- and the candidates who performed well in the Primary all had ties to that informal network of support (including Cline and Alston). Meanwhile, the black candidates aligned primarily with the Durham Committee lost. For example, three black candidates were elected as county commissioners tonight and not one of them is aligned with the powers-that-be in the Durham Committee. Michael Paige won because he is an incumbent and, as a pastor, he has the strong support of the church community (and many white voters). Joe Bowser, also elected, is an enemy of Lavonia Allison and represents a faction within the Committee seeking to overthrow her. His winning the Committee’s endorsement, as well as the election itself, signals a shift in power within the Committee, and the emergence of an effective non-Committee black political alliance within Durham (go Emory Woods!). The third candidate, Brenda Howerton, was blatantly snubbed by the Committee and was not endorsed by them – yet won her seat anyway, thanks in part to her endorsement by local labor, which has a strong influence on city workers… a group that overlaps significantly with, you guessed it, the African-American church community. That, plus her support by white voters, was enough to move her past Fred Foster.
Meanwhile, Fred Foster, the closest we have to a pure Committee candidate, lost despite the huge number of black voters, while Victoria Peterson – though not endorsed by the Committee — performed frighteningly well. Why? I suspect Peterson’s anti-abortion and anti-gay stance won her some votes from church-going black voters: these are two issues that resonate with more than a few congregations. The irony of this all is that Peterson probably cost Fred Foster a spot on the county commission with her forging of endorsement hand-outs – another black spot for Lavonia Allison, who pretty much created a monster in the last election when she got Victoria Peterson to switch affiliations and run for City Council. When Peterson lost that election, despite the Committee’s endorsement, she turned on the Committee and accused them rather heatedly of not supporting her enough. It is partially the lingering remnants of this feud (and her Committee snubbing this time around) that caused her to hand out different versions of the fake endorsement sheets, including one in which Fred Foster’s name was taken off the list of Committee-endorsed candidates. She may well have pulled enough votes away from Foster to open the door for Brenda Howerton to win. In my opinion, this is a choice example of irony (if not karma) at work.
The bottom line is that when a candidate like Victoria Peterson can pull down as many votes as she did, and end up beating several far saner and better qualified white candidates – and do it without the Committee’s endorsement -- then clearly there were other organizations and forces affecting black turnout in Durham as well as black voters cast their ballots once they got to the polls.
I would also like to add, with apologies that I feel this is necessary, that, of course, there were many, many other factors at play with black voters – up to and including free will, a personal assessment of the candidates and all the other factors that influence voters, regardless of their color. I am in no way suggesting black voters vote in lockstep. Quite the contrary – which may spell bad news for those who like to base their power on promising just this.
Posted by: Coop | May 07, 2008 at 01:47 AM
coop - at my precinct, where i talked to registered Democrats nearly all day, i'd estimate that well over 60%, and possibly as high as 70%, of the voters came with the Committee's endorsement list already in hand. There's no other explanation for the showings of Jonathan Alston or Joe Bowser. Foster coming within a few hundred votes of the 5th seat on the Commission similarly is explained by the Committee's GOTV effort.
One wag i spoke to last night attributed both Howerton and Peterson's relatively strong showing to the "pissed-off black woman" vote, which, he says, was inspired by the Committee's failure to endorse any women for the Commission. There were also apparently some shenanigans going on with altered versions of the Committee's endorsement sheet being handed out to voters in some precincts. These had Fred Foster's name removed, and replaced with Victoria Peterson's. At one point, according to my source (and i have not corroborated this fully, so count it as a rumor) Tracey Cline herself was handing our these altered endorsement sheets to voters at Southern High School.
Posted by: Barry | May 07, 2008 at 08:04 AM
Couple of interesting points that occur to me:
* Voters who want to see a uniter in the White House--meaning Obama--inadvertendly also put a divider--meaning Joe Bowser--on the BOCC. I like Joe personally, but I also worked with him (if that's the right word) on a task force charged with getting a vocational school on the books. Joe almost single-handedly destroyed the task force with his hostility, rudeness and viciousness. I say "almost single-handedly" because Victoria Peterson was also there as his sidekick, engaging in similar personal attacks on Michael Page. Unless Joe has mellowed, we can look forward to him creating an environment not unlike what we saw on the school board prior to the 2006 election.
* If you're wondering where Doug Wright's votes came from, he undoubtedly got a few thousand from his networks, but most of his votes I believe came from Friends of Durham voters who did not want to vote for a black candidate--meaning Page--even tho he had the Friend's endorsement. Check the precincts that are close to 100% white demographics and you will find a significant fall off in votes received by Page, when compared to Reckhow and Heron. Normally, when a black candidate gets the Friends endorsement, only 40-60% of the voters in Friends precincts vote for that candidate. The ones that don't, then look around for a white face they can throw their vote to. And they have done that even when the white candidate is more liberal than the black one.
* Somebody was floating a fake Committee ballot with Howerton and Peterson's name added on. When Howerton found out, she told them she didn't want any part of that. In any event, I don't think there were lots of people handing those out.
* When the Committee made their endorsements of only men for BOCC, we were surprised they hadn't endorsed Peterson, as that is what we'd been hearing through the grapevine. Immediatley Howerton started getting calls from pissed off black women leaders in the community saying they wanted to jump in and help her campaign. If the votes could be sorted by gender, I bet Howerton's total is at least 2/3s women voters.
* In the interests of full disclosure, I was managing Howerton's campaign.
Posted by: Frank Hyman | May 07, 2008 at 09:16 AM
i see my "wag" has outed himself.
Posted by: Barry | May 07, 2008 at 09:29 AM