WILMINGTON, N.C. (WECT) – Unofficial midterm results show Democrats winning several key local races in New Hanover County, including every open seat on the county Board of Commissioners and the school board.
While the races aren’t official yet, Democrats are on track to flip control of the county commission, school board and state house.
Jessica Bichler is expected to upset State Senate Majority Leader Michael Lee by roughly 5,000 votes, while Tim Merrick is the leading vote-getter against Dane Scalise for the District 20 seat in the state House, which was previously controlled by Republican Ted Davis Jr. The race between Merrick and Scalise is separated by a slim margin.
Jerry Jones Jr., Brittnei LaRue, Margie Gewirtzman and Wendy Dale are the unofficial winners of the four seats on the school board ballot in this election cycle. All four were previously held by Republicans, and GOP incumbents Pat Bradford and Josie Barnhart finished at the bottom of the race.
In the county commission race, Rob Zapple maintained his spot on the board, while LeShonda Wallace topped Republican incumbent LeAnn Pierce by roughly 9,000 votes.
Incumbent Republican Congressman David Rouzer holds just a slim lead (158,914 to 157,076) over Democrat Kimberly Hardy, unofficial results show.
Nadine Gibson, a UNCW political science professor, said Democrats were boosted by a nationwide blue wave. She said Wilmington is a bellwether area, so it isn’t surprising to see results locally reflect national trends.
Gibson said larger issues like the economy, gas prices and the Iran War likely affected local races.
“We just saw a clear sign that people want Democrats in office, so I think there’s some macro-level concerns that probably were the theme of everyone’s race,” Gibson said. “With this high turnout, it suggests that people who don’t normally vote in midterms did show up, and it could also be the case that Republicans stayed home.”
New Hanover County Democratic Party Chair Jill Hopman said on Monday she did not like the term “blue wave,” saying it overstates and oversimplifies broader results, but on election night, Hopman said she couldn’t feel better about winning nearly every notable race the party was involved in.
Hopman said a group of volunteers, the thousands of doors Democrats knocked on and a unique group of candidates helped the party pull off a successful election.
“It was a lot of hard work that got to this moment. The real work starts tomorrow – when we actually start working on policy and how to make this county better. But I could not be more proud of all our candidates, all our volunteers, how hard every single person worked. It hasn’t hit me yet. It has not hit me yet,” Hopman said Tuesday.
Gibson said local policy decisions will now likely quickly shift to the left, and there will also be a stark contrast in how the boards have been run when compared to the past few years.
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