Things pretty much stayed the same across the board following Chatham County’s 2018 elections as most candidates found themselves unopposed on ballots in November.
The two contested races produced wins for incumbent Democratic county commissioners Diana Hales and Jim Crawford, who defeated Brian Bock and Neill Lindley, respectively, by more than 10 percentage points each. Incumbent Republican commissioner Walter Petty was unopposed, as were incumbent school board members Del Turner, Jane Allen Wilson and Gary L. Leonard.
Earlier in 2018, the Democratic primary for Chatham County sheriff garnered perhaps the most significant incident in the election season. An unsigned letter was posted on Facebook in March criticizing incumbent Sheriff Mike Roberson and was purported to be a personal attack on Roberson and his wife. The post claimed to have accounts from either current or former sheriff’s deputies.
Both Roberson and his opponent, Pittsboro Police Chief Percy Crutchfield, expressed disappointment with the letter, and Crutchfield said it was never “created, proofed or approved” by his campaign. Roberson defeated Crutchfield by more than 23 percent points in the May primary.
On the state and federal level, Democrats won Chatham County, but one of them still lost their election. State Rep. Robert Reives II defeated Republican challenger Jay Stobbs and state Sen. Valerie Foushee beat GOP opponent Tom Glendinning. U.S. House candidate Ryan Watts won Chatham County by nearly 5,000 votes, but Republican incumbent Rep. Mark Walker won the election, carried by the other counties in the Sixth Congressional District.
The county saw 36,182 ballots cast in November, marking a 66.76 percent turnout, a jump of almost eight percentage points from 2014, the last non-presidential election year.