With two tight races certified, NC Republicans fall one vote short of total control

Two tight North Carolina House races that had not been called were certified by local boards of elections Friday.

Democrat Diamond Staton-Williams defeated Republican Brian Echevarria for House District 73 in Cabarrus County. Meanwhile, Republican Timothy Reeder defeated a Democratic incumbent, Rep. Brian Farkas, for House District 9 in Pitt County.

Reeder, an emergency physician, won by 354 votes, or 1.18% of the total. As of Thursday, 1.5% of votes had separated the candidates. The gap narrowed on Friday, but not enough to meet the recount threshold for non-statewide contests: 1% or less of the total votes cast.

Staton-Williams, a member of the Harrisburg Town Council and a registered nurse, won by 629 votes, or 2.28% of the total. Before additional mail-in and provisional votes were added to the tally, 1.5% of votes had separated the candidates.

Staton-Williams’ and Reeder’s wins mean Republicans will hold 71 of 120 seats in the state House, falling short of a veto-proof supermajority by one vote for next year’s legislative session. A supermajority is three-fifths of voting lawmakers.

Farkas, in an email statement, said that serving his hometown in the House had been the honor of his life.

“When I was elected in 2020, I pledged to leave party politics at the door and work with anyone serious about getting things done – and it worked,” said Farkas, who said Pitt County received more than $320 million in direct investment during his term including a new $215 million facility for the Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University.

“The District 9 race was one of the closest races in the state this year, and we ran a positive, people-powered campaign. At the end of the day, our movement could not overcome the flood of $1 million of lie-filled attack ads. We certainly made them work for it, however, falling short by just 354 votes.”

Farkas told The News & Observer he did not have a comment beyond his email statement.

According to The Daily Reflector in Greenville, the conservative nonprofit Carolina Leadership Coalition distributed mailers with two doctored photos falsely depicting Farkas holding a sign saying “Defund the Police” and waving in front of rioters, with the message “State Representative Brian Farkas stood with rioters, not us.”

House Republican Caucus Director Stephen Wiley, in an article posted on Medium on Tuesday, wrote that the NC House GOP invested more than $700,000 each in the Reeder v. Farkas and the Echevarria v. Staton-Williams races. Those numbers would likely jump once final invoices were accounted for and did not include money the candidates raised themselves, Wiley wrote.

While Republicans have a supermajority in the state Senate, having won 30 of 50 seats, Gov. Roy Cooper can still veto bills. The one-vote margin in the House makes every lawmaker’s presence during votes next session that much more important, as previously reported by The News & Observer.

During canvassing and certification by county boards of elections Friday, which were open to the public, officials counted and added each pending provisional and absentee ballot to the totals to reach the final results. Provisional ballots are cast by voters when their names do not appear on voter rolls or there is any other form of doubt on their eligibility.

Both races involve a single county. The state board of elections will certify the results of many races, including those that cross county lines, at a public meeting held at 11 a.m. Nov. 29.

Close race in Mecklenburg

Final canvass results in a competitive Mecklenburg County judicial race show Republican Matt Osman leading Democrat Kimberly Best by just 76 votes.

Best has until 5 p.m. Monday to request a recount as Osman’s lead is less than 1% in the race for N.C. Superior Court Judge in District 26B. Osman received 25,998 votes and Best received 25,922, election results show.

Genna Contino of the Charlotte Observer contributed.

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