ELECTION RESULTS: Incumbents win big in Forsyth County races, school board split

Featured photo: Sheriff Bobby Kimbrough and Denise Hartsfield interact on Nov. 8. (photo by Jerry Cooper)

Forysth County Sheriff Bobby Kimbrough stood on the dais at Sir Winston on Tuesday evening and addressed his supporters who gathered around him, thanking them for their support; Kimbrough had just won his second term.

“Just as a plane leaves the ground every day, it doesn’t do that by itself,” he said. “There are people on the ground who give it gas, repair it and support it…. I couldn’t do this job without my people on the ground.”

As of 11 p.m. on Tuesday evening  with 100 percent of precincts reporting, Kimbrough, a Democrat, won with 65.9 percent of the vote against Republican Ernie Leyba.

Down the street at the Kimpton hotel, Democrat Trevonia Brown-Gaither gathered with family and supporters for a watch party. Brown-Gaither won the District 1 school board seat during the primaries, and had no opposition in the general election on Tuesday. She graciously offered visitors to partake in the huge spread of food while they watched election returns on the huge flatscreen and hit refresh on their phones.

A block away, in the white high rise across from the courthouse, Democratic district attorney candidate Denise Hartsfield watched results with her many supporters in the ballroom, down the hall from Thai Harmony. Numerous Winston-Salem political players, attorneys, supporters, friends and family mingled while the results came in.

A chorus of cheers arose at the front of the room as newly re-elected Sheriff Kimbrough arrived from his own election party and walked towards Hartsfield, meeting at the center of the room with a hug. It was a close race but Hartsfield ultimately lost to incumbent Republican Jim O’Neill who took 51.3 percent of the vote.

In other races, incumbents won easily including Democrat Paul Lowe of state Senate District 32, Republican Jeff Zenger of House District 74 and Democrat Amber Baker of House District 72. All won with more than 52 percent of the vote.

Republicans picked up a supermajority in the state Senate but failed to achieve one in the state House, securing the power of Gov. Cooper’s veto, according to reporting by the News & Observer.

Further down the ballot in the county commission race, Democrats won big with all but one of the open seats taken by a member of their party. For the at-large seat, former school board member Dan Besse beat Republican Terri Mrazek with 54.9 percent of the vote while Tonya McDaniel and Shai Woodbury won the two seats for District A. Republican Don Martin was the sole member of the GOP who won re-election to the board; he did not have a challenger on Tuesday evening.

In the school board race, the seats were split.

Five Democrats — Deanna Kaplan, Sabrina Coone-Godfrey, Richard Watts, Alex Bohannon and Trevonia Brown-Gaither — took the seats in the at-large and District 1 races while Republicans Leah Crowley, Susan Miller, Robert Barr and Steve Wood swept the four open seats in District 2.

Read about the federal election results here. Find the Guilford County results here.