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Nifong wins re-election

By John Stevenson, The Herald-Sun
November 8, 2006 1:00 am

DURHAM -- District Attorney Mike Nifong won re-election Tuesday by sweeping more than twice as many precincts as challenger Lewis Cheek.

But the victory was tempered by the fact that more voters cast ballots against him than in his favor in a hard-fought three-way race.

Nifong overcame deep dissatisfaction among many Durham residents with his handling of the Duke lacrosse rape case to win a four-year term as Durham's chief prosecutor.

He won in 38 precincts. Cheek, a county commissioner, took 17. Write-in challenger Steve Monks did not win any precincts.

Nifong's biggest pool of support was in the black community. He did not lose in any majority black precinct. In the eight precincts where more than 90 percent of the electorate is black, Nifong won by double-digit margins in every one, with the spread as wide as 29-1 at the James E. Shepard Magnet School polling place.

By contrast, Cheek's largest margin was nearly 3-1 at the Cole Mill Road Church of Christ. Most of his other precinct wins were roughly 2-1 victories, with others much closer.

Nifong garnered 26,116 votes -- or 49.1 percent of the total ballots cast -- in an election that many viewed as a referendum on the highly publicized, controversial lacrosse incident.

Write-ins -- Monks, chairman of the local Republican Party, likely dominant among them -- pulled 6,193 ballots, or 11.6 percent of the total.

Because enough voters petitioned that it be placed there, Cheek's name was on the ballot even though he didn't want the job. He received 20,875 votes.

If Cheek had won, Gov. Mike Easley would have appointed someone to replace him.

The Cheek campaign was officially billed as a "recall-Nifong" movement.

"People might not believe me, but for me personally, there was a lot to be said for not winning this race -- having a life and such as that," Nifong said as yellow-shirted supporters thronged around him and chanted his name at the county office building Tuesday night.

"This job has lost a lot of its appeal, not just for me but for anybody who might want to be DA," he added, citing intense national scrutiny of the lacrosse case.

Still, Nifong said it would have been bad for Durham if voters had ousted him.

"I'm glad it's over," Nifong said of the hard-fought election. "I will go back to work tomorrow and start moving forward."

Asked about the fact that he didn't obtain a majority of votes cast, Nifong said he "would have preferred to have 100 percent. If you can't have a landslide, you want a majority. If you can't have a majority, you want what you get. But if 99 percent of the people had voted for me, I'd still do what I'm doing. I can't let the voters decide what is the right thing to do. I just have to do the right thing."

Despite persistent rumors that he might retire after two years, Nifong vowed Tuesday night to serve his full four-term and possibly run for another.

Cheek said he was "always disappointed when I don't win something. I've lived my life trying to win. But I do know and understand you don't always win in life."

In a clear reference to the lacrosse case, Cheek said he hoped the election sent a message to the community -- and particularly to Nifong -- that "we need to be sensitive to the rights of people. We need not to prejudge."

Cheek said there was no chance he would run for district attorney again -- "absolutely not."

"I never intended to run for DA," he added. "I didn't run this time. You can scratch that one off the list."

Monks said a clear message emerged from Tuesday's election: "If you want change at the ballot box, you need to get off your duff. This made quite clear that the Republican Party needs to be better organized in Durham. I hope this motivates Republicans to get more involved."

Monks also denied allegations that he was a "spoiler" in the district attorney contest.

"That comment is as misguided as the campaign they [Cheek supporters] initiated, which put greater trust in the governor than it did in the voters," he said. "It was a critical mistake not to trust the voters."

Nifong's win will give him his first full term as Durham's chief prosecutor. He has been an assistant district attorney here for 27 years but didn't move into the top slot until the spring of 2005, when he received a gubernatorial appointment after his predecessor -- Jim Hardin Jr. -- became a judge.
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Win doesn't reflect doubts of many voters

By Ray Gronberg, The Herald-Sun
November 8, 2006 12:59 am

DURHAM -- Mike Nifong's victory Tuesday in the Durham district attorney race came despite broad doubts among voters about his handling of the Duke lacrosse rape case, according to Herald-Sun interviews with people who had cast ballots.

The informal exit polling found that nearly two-thirds of those voters believed Nifong has mishandled the case, which turned a race normally settled in May's party primary into a three-way shootout.

Meanwhile, there was little indication that a get-out-the-vote effort among anti-Nifong Duke students produced significant results at the polls.

Though Duke vans hauled students to two precincts near campus, the precincts' turnout was far below the countywide average of 38.5 percent.

Watts School -- barely two blocks from where the alleged attack occurred in March near East Campus -- had a 23.5 percent turnout, and saw Nifong lead the three-man field.

At Patterson Recreation Center near West Campus, challenger Lewis Cheek led the field but turnout was just 18 percent.

Many who did vote said they were casting ballots against incumbent Nifong and for Cheek, who said he would step aside if elected and let Gov. Mike Easley select a new chief prosecutor.

"The case has been handled incredibly poorly," said Duke senior Robert Hughes, a first-time-in-Durham and Watts School voter who said he registered here instead of back home in South Carolina at the request of a friend on the lacrosse team.

"The job of the DA is to promote justice, not to solely protect the underprivileged,"

Hughes said, referring to the exotic dancer and single mother who said the Duke players gang-raped her.

In the end, enough voters disagreed with that sentiment to carry Nifong to victory.

Final but unofficial figures show he captured about 49 percent of the vote to fellow Democrat Cheek's 39 percent. Write-ins -- likely dominated by declared write-in candidate Steve Monks -- won about 12 percent.

Of the more than 70 people interviewed by The Herald-Sun, about 60 percent said the lacrosse case had not changed their views about the fairness of the criminal-justice system, and another 15 percent had a better opinion of the system because of the case.

"It was really good that the DA's first impulse was believe the accuser," said Jeanette Stokes, a MoveOn.org volunteer and Nifong supporter who voted at the Durham School of the Arts.

"Whether it turns out she was telling the truth or not, 30 years ago, nobody would have believed her," Stokes said. "It shows the effects of women's and rape-crisis groups to have a different understanding that people who say they've been assaulted may actually have been assaulted."

The rain came down steadily throughout the day, but judges in several precincts reported a stronger-than-usual turnout for an off-year election. So did Board of Elections Director Mike Ashe, who said he was surprised by the numbers reported to him as the balloting unfolded.

The final turnout figure was about 38.5 perecent, slightly below the historical average for similar elections without a presidential, gubernatorial or U.S. senatorial race topping the ballot.

Ashe said the day's one snag occurred at the River Church precinct on Holt School Road, when a worker from the church failed to show up to unlock the building in time for the polls to open at 6:30 a.m. About 100 people were waiting to vote. Twenty of them headed instead to the Board of Elections office on Corporation Street to cast ballots.

The church got the doors open by 7:20 a.m., and if it hadn't, elections workers were ready to set up shop in the congregation's parking lot, Ashe said. The delayed opening was, nonetheless, the fault of his office, he said.

Officials decided to compensate by keeping the River Church precinct open until 8:30 p.m., an hour later than normal. Ashe said the move followed a unanimous vote by the local Board of Elections and consultations with the state Board of Elections in Raleigh.

At the Miller-Morgan Building on the campus of N.C. Central University, roughly 40 voters had cast ballots by about 10 a.m. Still, an election worker said that wasn't bad for a precinct that saw only 64 of 1,934 registered voters show up for the May primary.

While located at NCCU, the Miller-Morgan precinct doesn't only serve students. But junior Brandon James still was wondering where the rest of his classmates were.

"They just don't understand how serious it is," the political science major from Charlotte said.

Staff writers BriAnne Dopart, Kelly Hinchcliffe, John McCann, Tara McLaughlin, Bill Stagg and John Stevenson contributed to this story.
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