Election Results

Here in rural Franklin County, North Carolina the Republicans won big this cycle.

Straight ticket voters were more likely to vote Democrat than Republican (57% to 42%), but Richard Burr (edit, thanks James) won re-election to his Senate seat by a 52% to 46% margin (2.1% was split between write-ins and Libertarian candidate Mike Beitler) and Renee Ellers beat Bob Etheridge for the NC-2 House seat 52% to 46% (with Libertarian Tom Rose picking up the last 2%), although the Wake County voters put this margin at 50%-49% for the combined District 2 total (Rose got less than 1% of the vote in the entire District). The results are being contested by incumbent Etheridge since the spread is less than 1%.

Elsewhere in Franklin County, incumbent Doug Berger lost to Republican challenger Micheal Shriver for State Senate District 7 by a wide margin (43% to 57%) but the voters in the other counties in his district took him to victory, and Democrat John May lost to Republican Glen Bradley by a narrower margin (49% to 51%) for State House District 49. In the last contested race, Republican Harry Foy handily defeated Democrat Rosemary Champion (55% to 45%) for Board of Commissioners At Large.

Let's put that in perspective: in every contested race in Franklin County the Republican candidate won, and the only races that were won by Democrats were those that were not contested by the Republicans, even though the straight party ticket went Democrat by a large margin.

That makes for a pretty good night for the Republicans.