DURHAM -- Mayor Bill Bell and three incumbent City Council members won
landslide re-elections today, each taking more than 71 percent of the
vote.
With 57 of the city's 58 precincts counted, Bell led challenger Steven L.
Williams 77.5 percent to 22 percent, with a handful of write-in votes.
Results are unofficial until the Durham County Board of Elections tallies
1,047 early, absentee and provisional ballots and makes its final canvass
next Tuesday.
"It's a vote of confidence, and I appreciate it," Bell said at a victory
party Tuesday night.
Ward 1 incumbent Cora Cole-McFadden beat challenger Donald Hughes 76 percent
to 22 percent; Howard Clement, a 26-year council veteran, beat Matt Drew
71.4 percent to 27 percent in Ward 2; in Ward 3, Mike Woodard took 86.5
percent to Allan Polak's 13 percent.
"The numbers are quite telling," Cole-McFadden said.
"Experience matters," said Clement. "To me, that was the basis for our
election."
All the challengers were political newcomers. Williams ran for mayor in 2005
but dropped out before the election, while the three council candidates were
making their first bids for office.
The vote closed an election most citizens sat out of. Of the city's 141,834
registered voters, only 10,204 went to the polls Tuesday.With the ballots
yet to be counted, total turnout comes to only 7.9 percent.
In the 2007 council election, 25 percent voted, and 18.5 percent in 2005.
Those elections, though, included several bond issues. Tuesday's voting was
only for mayor and the three ward seats.
Tom Miller, president of Durham's InterNeighborhood Council, said the low
turnout is "a signal of satisfaction. We have the best team on the council
in a long time."
Woodard said the margins, "sent a clear, strong signal Durham values
leadership."
For those who did turn out, voting went off without a hitch, Elections
Director Mike Ashe said.
"Every voter that voted was treated properly and satisfied," he said.to the city's decayed water and sewer lines and potholed streets.
Bell and Cole-McFadden have held their offices since 2001. Woodard was first
elected in 2005, while Clement is the longest-serving council member in
Durham history with 26 years in the Ward 2 chair.
The newcomers challenged the city's status quo, but from different
perspectives. Williams and Hughes emphasized inclusiveness and attention to
the city's poor. Drew called for fiscal responsibility and restraint, and
Polak stressed his business experience as owner of a small IT firm.
In all cases but one, incumbents won endorsements from Durham's three major
political action groups. The Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People
favored Hughes over Cole-McFadden, but went with Bell, Clement and Woodard
in the other races. The leftish Durham People's Alliance and rightish
Friends of Durham endorsed all four incumbents.
In early voting, 1,006 citizens cast ballots, 112 more than in the Oct. 6
primary that set a modern record for low turnout with only 4.36 percent of
registered voters participating.
