Sen. Michael Lee delivered his victory speech to a crowd of supporters gathered at Katy’s Grill and Bar with his arm around his mother around 11:15 p.m. Election Day, Nov. 4, 2014.
Lee, who was appointed to fill former Sen. Thom Goolsby’s vacated District 9 Senate seat in the North Carolina General Assembly in July, defeated Democratic candidate Elizabeth Redenbaugh. With all precincts reporting by 11:30 p.m., Lee held 55.4 percent of the votes while Redenbaugh accumulated 44.6 percent. Lee garnered 35,256 votes to Redenbaugh’s 28,440 votes. In the breakdown of New Hanover County, Redenbaugh carried the majority of downtown Wilmington districts but Lee dominated the remainder of the county.
“The next step is to serve,” Lee said after delivering his victory speech. “I think voters in this election really wanted to hear the message and the plan instead of the same old party lines, and I think they really focused on the candidates.”
While Lee was only able to serve a few days as senator after replacing Goolsby, he said that little time helped him prepare for the coming long session of the N.C. General Assembly in January 2015.
“That brief time really helped me get to know everyone up there and make the right connections to help the people of southeastern North Carolina,” he said.
Incumbent Rep. Rick Catlin’s race for the District 20 N.C. House of Representatives seat against Democratic challenger Betsy Jordan was separated by a larger margin than Lee’s win over Redenbaugh.
With all precincts reporting Catlin held 62 percent of the votes while Jordan held 38 percent. The District 20 seat encompasses most of northeastern New Hanover County and Catlin won all but two of the 17 precincts, with 16,722 votes.
Earlier in the evening Jordan said she had visited 16 of the polling locations around the county throughout the day and was impressed by the amount of participation in the election.
“What I noticed was we were all out there, people from both sides of our race out there at every single polling place,” Jordan said. “I expect our race will be called fairly early and I want people to know when we started this race it was the last day of filing, against an incumbent, and we had a message to bring to the table. We think we will win even if we lose. … We got people involved in voting that are usually not voters.”
Around 9:45 p.m. Catlin left the New Hanover County Government Center with a healthy lead in hand.
When asked if there was any one thing to which he could attribute his success, Catlin said it would be that his campaign focused on him.
“I have had a lot of people tell me, ‘Thank you for running a positive campaign,’” Catlin said. “I tried to inform people of what I was working on and what I do and I hope that makes a difference. I really would like to see more positive campaigns.”
As far as his immediate goals as a returning state representative, Catlin said he has an extensive list of bills and issues he is already working on.
“I have a bill to get ready to restore our senior citizens’ medical deductions, I am working on my water source protection bill and I have been to both Cape Fear coal ash sites and I think I have a solution everybody agrees to that will get the coal ash away from the Cape Fear River before anywhere else,” he said. “I am also researching the return on investments of Governor McCrory’s transportation bond, because there is nothing better for our economy than infrastructure improvements, but I want to understand all the details.”
Rep. Ted Davis Jr., R-New Hanover, and Rep. Susi Hamilton, D-New Hanover/Brunswick, who ran unopposed, will also return to Raleigh for the long session beginning Jan. 14, 2015. They received 18,330 and 9,383 votes respectively.
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