Deborah Ross wins in Wake County as Democrats pick up 2 congressional seats
Former State Rep. Deborah Ross, who four years ago unsuccessfully challenged U.S. Sen. Richard Burr for his seat, was declared the winner by AP Tuesday in the race to represent a redrawn congressional district that takes up most of Wake County.
Unofficial results showed Ross, a Raleigh Democrat, was ahead of Republican Alan Swain by 63% to 35% in a district that state lawmakers redrew last year in response to a gerrymandering lawsuit. House District 2 is now strongly Democratic in voter registration; incumbent Rep. George Holding, a Raleigh Republican, decided not to run after four terms.
In her remarks at the N.C. Democratic Party headquarters in Raleigh, Ross appealed for bipartisanship as an easing of the current political tensions in North Carolina and the nation.
“We have a president who let us down. He has not taken this pandemic seriously and as a result this county and this state and this country have suffered mightily,” she said.
“What we want to do is bring people back together,” Ross said. “Give them faith in their government, in what we can do to make their lives better. We want to be able to get people back to work safely, back to school safely, make sure they have affordable and accessible health care, make sure we take care of our seniors. And we can do that working together.”
.JPG "RAL_ELECTIONNIGHT-SP-110320-RTW_2 (1).JPG")
Democrats were expected to increase their representation on North Carolina’s 13-seat U.S. House delegation from three seats to at least five as a result of the Republican-led state legislature’s redrawing of districts. The 6th District was redrawn to take in all of Guilford County and part of Forsyth County, also making it much more Democrat friendly. Democrat Kathy Manning of Greensboro won that seat over Republican Lee Haywood, the AP reported, based on early unofficial results.
The incumbent in that district, Rep. Mark Walker, a Greensboro Republican, also decided not to run for reelection.
But those were the only two seats they could add Tuesday, losing in three races that had been considered competitive.
Several seats were considered safe for incumbents, including Rep. David Price, a Chapel Hill Democrat who won reelection to a 17th term representing the 4th District, the AP reported. He was ahead of Republican Robert Thomas 73% to 27% with 30% of the votes cast.
Price was the first Democratic candidate to deliver victory remarks at the party’s state headquarters in Raleigh, speaking at an outdoor event more than two hours after polls closed in the state. Price said he believed this election night would be pivotal for the nation.
“I’m confident we’ll look back on this election night as the night we turned our country around,” Price said.
In his next term in Congress, Price said his focus will be on public education, health care and affordable housing. Taking a wider view, Price said the nation’s global standing has taken a blow over the last four years. “The moral leadership, our alliances, so much has been allowed to deteriorate over these last four years,” Price said. “We have a lot of rebuilding to do.”
Most of the attention on North Carolina’s congressional races focused on the 8th, 9th and 11th districts, three seats that have been held by Republicans but had tight polling numbers. The 11th covering Western North Carolina drew national attention; it’s an open seat formerly held by Republican Mark Meadows who left earlier this year to become President Donald Trump’s chief of staff.
The AP called it for Republican Madison Cawthorn, who will become the youngest member of Congress at 25, with nearly two-thirds of the ballots cast. He defeated retired Air Force colonel and Democrat Morris “Moe” Davis in the race for a newly redrawn western North Carolina district.
Republican incumbent Dan Bishop won reelection to the 9th District, a seat that he claimed in a special election last year that had to be held after a ballot harvesting scandal. He beat Democrat Cynthia Wallace by more than 10 percentage points with 98% of the votes tallied, the AP reported.
Republican incumbent Richard Hudson also held onto his seat in the 8th against Democrat challenger Patricia Timmons-Goodson, a former N.C. Supreme Court associate justice. Hudson had 53% of the vote to Timmons-Goodson’s 47% with 99% of the votes in, the AP reported.
The AP also declared winners Democratic incumbent G.K. Butterfield in the 1st District, and Republican incumbents Greg Murphy in the 3rd District, Virginia Foxx in the 5th District, David Rouzer in the 7th District and Ted Budd in the 13th District based on early returns. All are Republicans.
Only one seat went uncontested Tuesday, the 12th District seat held by incumbent Rep. Alma Adams, a Democrat.
Drew Jackson of The News & Observer and Austin Weinstein and Danielle Chemtob of The Charlotte Observer contributed to this report.
This story was originally published November 3, 2020 at 10:27 PM with the headline "Deborah Ross wins in Wake County as Democrats pick up 2 congressional seats."