As the dust settles from Tuesday's mayoral and city council primary in Durham, candidates who survived the vote are taking stock of their campaigns and preparing for the city's Nov. 7 general election.
Returns from the mayoral race showed strong support for incumbent Sylvia Kerckhoff, who won 71 percent of the votes. Kerckhoff said she was surprised by the results.
"It shows people like what I'm doing," she said. "I was hopeful I might do well, but I didn't expect to get [71 percent]."
Kerckhoff will face challenger Harry Rodenhizer, whom she defeated in 1993, in the general election. Rodenhizer received 27 percent of the votes in the primary. Despite the wide margin of victory, Kerckhoff said that she plans to maintain a very active campaign.
"I can't let my guard down. We must continue to run the campaign as if it was a closer vote," she said. In the 1993 election, Kerckhoff defeated Rodenhizer by a margin of 20 percent.
Rodenhizer was not available for comment.
Most candidates said that the results of the primary will not change their approach to campaigning.
"I campaigned on what I believe in, and I will continue to do that," said Betsy Robb, a candidate for the Ward IV seat.
Tyrone Cox, Robb's opponent in the race, expressed similar sentiments. "It's not a matter of defeating Betsy Robb," Cox said. "I need to continue to get out in the community on a day-to-day basis. That's the way to make people aware."
Cox finished first in the primary with 45 percent of the votes, while Robb finished second with 37 percent of the votes.
In the at-large City Council races, incumbent candidates Lorisa Seibel and Kim Griffin may have their work cut out for them, as they finished third and fourth in the balloting behind challengers Cynthia Brown and Paul Miller. Only three of the six at-large candidates in the general election will earn seats on the Council.
Endorsements may have played a significant role in the results of the primary. Brown, who finished first with 60 percent of the votes, received the endorsements of the Durham Voters' Alliance and the People's Alliance, two liberal political action groups, as well as the Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People.
The Committee also backed second-place finisher Paul Miller and Joe Williams, who finished fifth. Miller, who received 51 percent of the votes, said that the endorsement was a very significant factor in his strong showing. The Committee brought more voters to the polls than most other political action committees, Miller said.
Two of the candidates backed by the conservative Friends of Durham, Griffin and John Best, advanced to the general election. Best finished sixth with 30 percent of the votes.
Best said that his chances will improve in the general election if voter turnout increases. "I think I will do better if I can motivate conservative voters to get out and vote," he said. Only 14.2 percent of Durham's 92,349 registered voters cast ballots in the primary.
If the number of voters does not increase, Griffin said that the council would become considerably more liberal.
"The Council will be back where it was in the 80's, with an entirely different group of people," he said.
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