RALEIGH — Bryan Collins, Wake County’s first public defender, was successful Tuesday in a campaign orchestrated by the county’s longest-serving superior court judge to unseat incumbent Judge Abe Jones.

In unofficial but complete results, Collins garnered 51.81 percent of the 58,143 votes cast in the new Wake County judicial district. Jones, a veteran judge with 17 years on the bench, garnered 48.19 percent.

Collins, 52, said he was approached last year by Don Stephens, Wake County’s senior resident Superior Court judge, about running for judge. So, late last year, he moved from his condominium in downtown Raleigh to an apartment in North Raleigh just so he could run in the newly created District 10E.

The unusually shaped district in eastern Wake County was created by the state legislature in 2011 and extends from North Raleigh around the center of the city to Knightdale, Wendell, Zebulon and North Garner.

It was the only Superior Court judicial race in Wake County that was contested.

Though the campaign between Collins and Jones was courtly in public forums, many questions were raised on the campaign trail.

Blythe: 919-836-4948