Charles Blackwood and David Caldwell faced off in a second Democratic primary election Tuesday to determine who will be Orange County's first new sheriff in more than 30 years.
The map below shows the precinct-level results of this runoff election. The results are shown as the ratio of votes for Blackwood to votes for Caldwell. (As usual, these preliminary precinct-level results are inaccurate to the extent that early votes may have differed from votes cast on election day. See the raw numbers in this Google spreadsheet. Thanks to Damon Seils for providing the map.)
A total of 8413 Orange County residents voted out of a possible 91,173. So, only 9.23% of voters participated in choosing our next sheriff.
The victorious Sheriff-elect Blackwood, who will take office in December, appears to have done a good job of getting out the vote in certain precincts, while Caldwell did not. Relatively high turnout in several rural precincts was key for Blackwood. Still, turnout overall was dismal and was especially poor in Chapel Hill. Caldwell won just over half of the precincts (23 of 44), but his precincts did not vote in the numbers Blackwood's did.
Both candidates won their home precincts. Blackwood's strongest precincts were Caldwell (which he won by a ratio of more than 6 to 1), Country Club, Eno, Efland, White Cross, Cameron Park, St Mary's, and Kings Mill.
Caldwell's strongest precincts were Lincoln, Town Hall, Northside, OWASA, Weaver Dairy Satellite, Lions Club. He won 7 of the 8 Carrboro precincts, reflecting his overall tendency to do better in and around the 3 towns.
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Comments
Cartogram needed
This election is screaming for a cartogram -- like the one we did for the transit referendum -- but it will have to wait until my favorite SAS wizard returns from vacation.