Incumbent Jack Smith keeps seat on Cary Town Council. Carissa Johnson wins at-large seat.
Incumbent Jack Smith kept his seat and Carissa Johnson won the at-large seat in the Cary Town Council runoff Tuesday, according to unofficial election results.
With all 13 precincts in District C reporting, Smith finished first with 3,101 votes (55%) to Renee Miller’s 2,540 votes (45%).
Smith had finished just behind Miller in the May election, but she did not meet the threshold to avoid a runoff.
“Cary was the big winner tonight as we focused on people and local issues,” Smith said in a statement to The News and Observer. “I’m so proud of the broad-based support I received across all political parties.”
On Wednesday afternoon, Miller thanked her supporters in a Facebook post saying she was “overwhelmed with the outpouring of support from our volunteers and donors.”
With all 44 town precincts in Wake, Chatham and Durham counties reporting, Johnson won the at-large race with 7,495 votes (53%) to Ken George’s 6,672 votes (47%).
Johnson finished ahead of George and council member Ed Yerha in the May primary. But she also did not secure more than 50% of the votes, the threshold needed to avoid a runoff in the non-partisan race.
In a phone interview with the News & Observer, Johnson said she was “stunned” at her win.
“It’s just experiencing this the way I did with this giant group of supporters was such a unique and wonderful and terrific experience,” she said. “I guess transformative is kind of the word. My universe has expanded significantly, and I feel even more prepared to advocate more broadly for people. It’s really neat.”
More than 8,000 people cast ballots in Wake County during the early voting period from July 7-23. In addition to the two Cary Town Council seats, former deputy Willie Rowe faced incumbent Gerald Baker in the Democratic runoff for sheriff. The winner of that race will face Republican Donnie Harrison this fall.
About 2,000 absentee ballots were counted Tuesday and about 13,000 people had cast their votes as of 2:30 p.m., said Stacy Beard, spokesperson for the Wake County Board of Elections.
This story was originally published July 26, 2022 at 8:49 PM with the headline "Incumbent Jack Smith keeps seat on Cary Town Council. Carissa Johnson wins at-large seat.."