ROCKINGHAM — Donald Trump is heading back to the White House after securing 290 electoral votes over the 224 obtained by Vice President Kamala Harris.
The president-elect also garnered the popular vote in the 2024 election, according to the Associated Press.
Richmond County overwhelmingly supported Trump with 60.05% percent of the vote, compared to Harris’ 39.18%.
Locally, Harris had more votes in absentee ballots, as well as in the Rockingham 1, Beaverdam 1 and Steeles 2 precincts.
Of the third-party candidates in the presidential race, Cornel West with the Justice for All Party did the best with 45 votes, followed by Libertarian Chase Oliver (35), the Green Party’s Jill Stein (26) and the Constitution Party’s Randall Terry (23). There were also 26 write-in votes for president.
(Note: The Richmond County Board of Elections results website only shows the Republican and Democratic candidates.)
Following an attempt in 2018 marred by election fraud, Mark Harris won the seat for the 8th Congressional District.
Not only did Harris win Richmond County, but all but one of the other counties in the district: Anson, Cabarrus, Montgomery, Scotland, Stanly, Robeson and Union. Democrat Justin Dues secured only Mecklenburg County.
Harris will replace Dan Bishop, who stepped down to run for state attorney general — but lost the race to former state senator and current Congressman Jeff Jackson by nearly 180,000 votes.
Current Attorney General Josh Stein won out as governor over current Republican Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson.
Despite losing in six precincts and absentee ballots, Robinson still carried Richmond County.
Libertarian Mike Ross garnered 3.1% of the vote, followed by the Constitution Party’s Vinny Smith and the Green Party’s Wayne Tuner, each with less than 1%.
Stein follows in the footsteps of Gov. Roy Cooper and former governor Mike Easley, both of whom served as attorney general before being elected to the state’s top office.
Rachel Hunt, Democratic state senator and daughter of former governor Jim Hunt, won the seat for lieutenant governor over her challengers: Republican Hal Weatherman, Libertarian Shannon Bray and the Constitution Party’s Wayne Jones.
Keeping with the local red wave, Weatherman secured the most votes in Richmond County.
In all contested seats— auditor, treasurer, commissioner of agriculture, commissioner of insurance, commissioner of labor, superintendent of public instruction and secretary of state — Richmond County chose Republicans.
However, that wasn’t the case statewide with the outcome, as seen in the aforementioned state races.
While Republicans Bob Briner (treasurer), Dave Boliek (auditor), Steve Troxler (ag commissioner), and Luke Farley (labor) won their respective races, Democrat Elaine Marshall retained her seat as secretary of state and Maurice “Mo” Green was elected as superintendent.
(Note: The Richmond County Board of Elections website lists Republican superintendent candidate Michele Morrow as “Michael Morrow.”)
Marshall has served as secretary of state since 1997.
With all the results in, Sen. Dave Craven, R-Randolph, will retain his seat with 68.63% of the vote over Richmond County Democratic challenger Kevin Clark; and Ben Moss will serve another term in the N.C. House of Representatives with 61.08% over Moore County Democrat Jimmy Self.
Click here to read about more local results.
Records with the N.C. State Board of Elections show that nearly 10,000 of the county’s registered voters did not fill out a ballot.
