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Election 2008
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Wednesday, May 07, 2008, 10:52 AM
It's Perdue vs. McCrory in November From staff and wire reports The race for North Carolina's next governor was cut Tuesday from eight to two -- Lt. Gov. Beverly Perdue and Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory. Both candidates handily won their statewide primaries, although Wilson County voters did not like them as much as did N.C. voters as a group. Perdue beat State Treasurer Richard Moore in the Democratic primary. With 100 percent of precincts reporting, Perdue had 56 percent of the vote statewide, to Moore's 40 percent. Dennis Nielsen of Nashville had 4 percent. All results are unofficial until the statewide canvass May 13. In Wilson County, Perdue earned 50 percent of the vote, Moore 47 percent and Nielsen 3 percent. Both Democrats had supporters at the polls Tuesday evening. Outside Forest Hills Middle School, Robert Mazur said of Perdue, "My wife made the point that if she can raise a family in today's world, she can sure as heck can run the state." At the Wilson County Agricultural Center, Vickie Gray said she had voted for Moore. "I like his views on taxes," she said. In Wilson County, Smith won 44 percent of the vote. McCrory had 36 percent. Buck Newton, the county Republican Party chair, noted Tuesday night that Smith remains a popular figure with local voters. After the results came in, Perdue and McCrory were already looking ahead to the fall contest. "Tonight I'm thinking about this victory," Perdue told the Associated Press. "I do know that we're going to stay focused on the issues that matter to the people of North Carolina -- those middle-class folks out there who are working hard." McCrory said his message -- one of changing the culture of state government -- also would remain the same. "We need to debate the culture of the old status quo -- the old politics of North Carolina," said McCrory, a seven-term mayor of the state's largest city. McCrory wasted no time in calling for debates with Perdue, who sounded willing in an interview to participate in at least two. The Republican Party planned a news conference Wednesday on the old Capitol grounds, with McCrory and other GOP candidates. Outgoing Gov. Mike Easley, who is barred by law from seeking a third consecutive term, was to appear an hour earlier with Perdue at state Democratic Party headquarters. It wasn't clear if Moore would be there to lend his support. The GOP last won a governor's election in 1988, but McCrory bragged Tuesday he hasn't lost an election since running for student body president at Catawba College. "Now we've got to win the big one," he said. Thad Beyle, a political science professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said McCrory is coming out of a longtime Republican stronghold in Charlotte, also the home to the last GOP governor, Jim Martin. McCrory may have trouble in what may become a Democratic year. But he may try to link Perdue to Easley, whose has suffered from a run of bad publicity in recent months as the failing of the state's mental health reform were exposed and allegations made that his administration destroyed public records. "Wrapping Easley's foibles around her neck could be a problem," Beyle said. Moore and Perdue ran a hard-fought campaign for the Democratic nomination. It was a race at least three years in the making, and one that cost the pair of state government veterans more than $16 million. Perdue stopped running negative ads against Moore in the final month of the campaign in favor of more positive ads, including one featuring television icon Andy Griffith. McCrory entered the race in mid-January -- late in the game compared to Smith and two other candidates who had been on the campaign trail for close to a year.
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