Election results: Find out who Chapel Hill voters picked for mayor, council
.jpg "Chapel Hill mayoral candidates Jess Anderson and Adam Searing")
Town Council member Jess Anderson won a solid victory in the race for Chapel Hill mayor Tuesday with nearly 59% of the vote, while the race for the last open council seat remained close to the end.
Anderson had 58.79% (7,092) of the votes compared to 40.97% (4,943 votes) for fellow Council member Adam Searing, according to final but unofficial results posted by the State Board of Elections.
She will succeed Mayor Pam Hemminger, who decided over the summer not to seek a fifth term leading the town.
All of the town’s 18 precincts had reported results as of 9:34 p.m. The results included absentee ballots and those of 8,684 people who cast ballots in Carrboro, Chapel Hill and Hillsborough contests during early voting this year.
Voters also chose to return a sitting council member, Amy Ryan, to the eight-member board, and elected three new members: Melissa McCullough, Theodore Nollert and Elizabeth Sharp.
Sharp’s official appointment to the board will be contingent on a Nov. 16 canvass, including provisional and mail-in ballots, at the Board of Elections in Hillsborough. In unofficial results, Sharp only had 16 more votes than Renuka Soll, who ran with her on a slate of candidates and came in fifth.
Anderson, a 44-year-old professor of the practice in the UNC Department of Public Policy, will take office in December. She was elected to the council in 2015, serving two years as mayor pro tem and most recently as chair of the town’s Council Committee on Economic Sustainability.
She thought the race with Searing would be closer, Anderson said Wednesday, especially after a recent Public Policy Polling survey showed 40% of voters were not sure who to support. In the end, “it was good to have that solid victory in place,” she said.
After working with Hemminger through the transition, she will fulfill a campaign promise to enact the town’s Complete Community strategy, including diverse housing, a transportation and greenway network, and economic competitiveness. The town also needs to address the hostility and misinformation that affected this year’s elections, Anderson said.
“That has to be not only part of the path forward, but part of the healing that we need to do for the community,” she said.
“We do need to figure out how to bridge some of those divides and get back to talking to each other and treating each other with respect,” she said. “I also think it’s really important that our communications going forward are stronger and that we are making very clear to the public what we are and aren’t doing, that we are bringing people along.”
Searing, a 46-year-old public interest attorney, said he knew winning was a long shot but also thought the race would be closer.
Four council candidates who ran with him as a single slate — David Adams, Breckany Eckhardt, Sharp and Soll — “gave absolutely everything they could give” to the campaign, he said. He also thanked the hundreds of volunteers who worked “enormously long hours” to support his run.
“I knew it was a long shot to win, but I thought building a coalition of great folks and running together as a team and just going around, doing kitchen-table politics and people opening up their homes to us and talking to people in multiple neighborhoods and towns — hundreds of people — I thought that was worth doing,” Searing said. “Obviously, the voters disagreed.”
Town Council races
Ryan is the only incumbent council member returning for another four-year term. Council members Michael Parker and Tai Huynh declined to run for another term; Anderson’s council seat was also on the ballot.
Here are unofficial results for the council election:
▪ Amy Ryan, with 13.88% (6,467 votes)
▪ Melissa McCullough, with 13.83% (6,440 votes)
▪ Theodore Nollert, with 13.58% (6,323 votes)
▪ Elizabeth Sharp, with 10.70% (4,985 votes)
Renuka Soll, who finished fifth, campaigned alongside Sharp as part of a four-person slate aligned with Searing.
Soll ended Tuesday night’s count with 10.67%, or 4,969 votes, which could allow her to ask for a recount. On Wednesday, Soll posted on Facebook that she will address the election outcome after an official canvass next week at the Orange County Board of Elections.
Searing said he has a lot of respect for both women, but Sharp brought a business sense to the campaign trail that was important, especially in terms of what businesses do for the character of the community and how they provide jobs and attract visitors.
“We talk a lot about revitalizing downtown is a key part of how to keep Chapel Hill going,” he said. “Whether it’s Elizabeth or Renuka ... having that voice there is going to be important.”
The remaining candidates were:
▪ David Adams (9.52%, or 4,435 votes),
▪ Erik Valera (9.52%, or 4,435 votes),
▪ Breckany Eckhardt (8.73%, or 4,064 votes),
▪ Jon Mitchell (8.59%, or 4,002 votes) and
▪ Jeffrey Hoagland (0.84%, or 392 votes).
Housing spurs interest, donations
This year’s election set new records for fundraising, with over $251,000 raised by candidates and political action committees by Oct. 23. That included more than $82,000 funneled into the race to become Chapel Hill’s next mayor.
It also was one of the town’s most contentious, according to voters who spoke Tuesday afternoon with The News & Observer. Voters cited concerns about rampant misinformation and bullying online and in person by candidates, citizens and political groups.
Several people — those who said they voted for Searing, in particular — declined to be interviewed about their choices.
Others said housing, sustainable growth and environmental protection were key issues, and that they voted for Anderson to be mayor. Their council choices, they said, were candidates who most closely aligned with her ticket.
Loretta Bryant stopped to talk after voting at First Baptist Church downtown for Anderson, McCullough, Ryan, Nollert and Valera. She based her decision on a voter guide produced by the Orange County Affordable Housing Coalition, she said.
“I picked Jess Anderson, because she’s for low-income housing and trying to hep the homeless,” and the others “stand for the same values,” Bryant said. “I believe they’re good people.”
Gregg Warshaw, who also voted at First Baptist Church, said it was hard to separate the “two basic groups” running this year, but development and the pace of changes in town appeared again to be central issues. He chose candidates, including Anderson, who he felt have some experience and are willing to do some development, he said.
The private investment in new office buildings downtown and increasing commercial tax revenues are good, he said.
“I think there’s some people who just like to slow it down and other people who feel like there has to be some growth in the city to keep us competitive with communities around here,” Warshaw said. “I think the entire Triangle is getting pretty crowded. I don’t think we’re keeping up with the population growth, the infrastructure, roads, and things like that.”
Jai Hackney, who voted Tuesday at the library, said he had “heard good things” about Valera and came out to vote for him and others because it was his civic duty.
This story was originally published November 7, 2023 at 7:49 PM.
