Trump wins
By John Joyce
Published in News on November 9, 2016 8:40 AM
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News-Argus/CASEY MOZINGO
People gather at the Republican Headquarters in downtown Goldsboro Tuesday night to watch elections results as the are announced on several television networks.
The hours ticked by as more states turned red than blue on the massive touch-screen monitors network and cable television news channels used to track election results Tuesday night.
By 9 p.m. it seemed possible, and by 11 p.m., probable, that Donald J. Trump, despite polling data and early projections to the contrary, would reach the requisite 270 electoral college votes needed to defeat Hillary Clinton.
It would be a few hours more before the 2016 presidential race was called in Trump's favor.
Millions of Americans awakened to the news this morning that Trump, and not Clinton, is the President-elect who will take up residence in the White House come January.
The House and Senate majorities also went red, giving the GOP the proverbial trifecta, threatening as some media pundits have surmised to undermine whatever accomplishments President Barrack Obama might have sought to cling to as his legacy.
In North Carolina, Gov. Pat McCrory has refused to concede a tight race to challenger Roy Cooper, the state's attorney general, who proclaimed victory early Wednesday morning in his bid to unseat McCrory.
A mere 5,000 or more votes separate the two men.
McCrory said in a statement Wednesday morning that the "democratic process is going to proceed for a while in N.C."
None of the races decided in the state Tuesday are official until Nov. 18, after county and the state boards of elections have had the chance to review the ballots in each race.
In another controversial race local to Wayne County, attorney Will Bland unseated District 8-B Superior Court Judge Arnold O. Jones II, of Pikeville, by an almost a two-to-one margin.
Bland had 29,251 votes (63.75 percent) to 16,630 (36.25 percent) for Jones.
In the race for District Court judge for District 8, Curtis Stackhouse of Goldsboro defeated Judge Annette Turik of Kinston 44,102 (58.74 percent) to 30,983 (41.26).
The district includes Wayne, Greene and Lenoir counties.
Also, in Goldsboro, residents backed a $10 million bond referendum package Tuesday with overwhelming support.
The city's $3 million parks and recreation bond, earmarked for the construction of a multisport complex, passed with 10,474 residents voting in favor of the bond and 2,403 voting in opposition.
The $7 million infrastructure bond supporting road resurfacing and new road construction also passed with a wide margin as 10,966 residents voted in favor of the bond and 1,944 voting in opposition.
Other results are listed below:
All of the following incumbents were unopposed in their re-election bids:
Wayne County commissioners
At-large, Wayne Aycock, Republican, 32,353
District 1, Ray Mayo, Republican, 7,235
District 2, Ed Cromartie, Democrat, 5,236
District 3, John Bell, Democrat, 7,147
District 4, Joe Gurley, Republican, 6,974
District 5, Bill Pate, Republican, 5,922
District 6, Joe Daughtery, Republican, 7,773
N.C. General Assembly
District 5 Sen. Don Davis, Democrat, 13,965
District 7 Sen. Louis Pate Jr., Republican, 24,693
District 4 Rep. Jimmy Dixon, Republican, 14,471
District 21 Rep. Larry Bell, Democrat, 14,724
Register of Deeds
Judy Harrison, Democrat, 33,965
District Court judges, District 8 (Wayne, Greene, Lenoir counties)
David Bernard Brantley, 53,671
Charles P. Gaylor III, 53,873
Ericka James, 54,906
Les Turner, 53,285
All vote totals are unofficial until the county canvass on Friday, Nov. 18.
---- Staff writers Steve Herring and Rochelle Moore contributed to this report