SHALLOTTE, N.C. -- Some in Brunswick County will see Sheriff John Ingram's victory over his Democratic opponent in Tuesday's vote and say, "Aha, we told you so."
With all precincts reporting, Ingram had tallied 27,827 votes to 11,587 for Rendy Lewis, a former magistrate seeking to deny Ingram a four-year term.
Ingram was nominated to the office by the Brunswick Democratic Party to replace former Sheriff Ron Hewett, who was a Democrat. When Ingram then shifted his allegiance to the Republican Party, Democrats were rankled, at best.
Longtime Brunswick political cognoscenti said Ingram changed his political banner to align himself with the party that has swept all local elections in the 2008 and 2010 votes. But a handful of voters at the polls Tuesday said that while party affiliation is a big factor in their votes, it didn't matter so much in the box they checked for the sheriff's office.
"Basically, I vote Republican," said Patti Dugan of Ocean Isle Beach after she cast her ballot at the Shingletree precinct polling place in Shallotte. But she said she would have altered that and voted for Ingram even if he had remained a Democrat.
Ingram's done a good job, Dugan said.
Similarly, Holden Beach, N.C. Commissioner Sandy Miller, a Democratic Party worker outside Secession 2 precinct near Holden Beach, said she is 80 percent Democrat. But had Lewis been on the Republican side of the column, she would have voted for her anyway.
"I believe I would have voted for a woman," she said.
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