All results as of 12:06 a.m., Wednesday, May 7, 2008.

All results preliminary and unofficial. The Board of Elections is scheduled to certify results on May 19.

Democratic Primaries

Presidential Preference
Barack Obama 69.60% 27,824
Hillary Clinton 28.87% 11,540
Mike Gravel 0.62% 249
No preference 0.91% 363

US Senate
Kay Hagan 50.83% 17,208
Duskin C. Lassiter 2.81% 952
Jim Neal 38.64% 13,082
Howard Staley 2.34% 792
Marcus W. Williams 5.38% 1,821

Governor
Richard H. Moore 45.17% 16,753
Dennis Nielsen 2.88% 1,067
Bev Perdue 51.95% 19,265

Lieutenant Governor
Walter H. Dalton 24.93% 7,953
Hampton Dellinger 52.95% 16,889
Pat Smathers 10.03% 3,199
Dan Besse 12.08% 3,854
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Going into Tuesday, higher registration numbers were already indicating a heavy turnout for Election Day, when Orange County voters would cast their ballots for everything from a tax referendum to the next president. The early vote total swelled as well, nearly reaching 18,000 votes by the close of business on Saturday, meaning that 18 percent of those registered voted prior to Election Day, a total close to the average total turnout in a typical primary year. By the time Tuesday’s votes were added in, more than 46,190 had voted in the county, putting turnout at an estimated 48 percent.

As evidenced by the results, driving the turnout was a surge of interest in the Democratic presidential race. In that contest, Barack Obama won 62 of North Carolina’s 128 delegates with 56 percent of the vote. In Orange County, where Obama had high visibility and an office full of volunteers on West Franklin Street, the Illinois senator won 70 percent of the vote to Sen. Hillary Clinton’s 29 percent. Clinton did not appear in Orange County, but her husband, former president Bill Clinton, made a stop in Hillsborough.
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Incumbent Lieutenant Governor and Chapel Hill resident Beverly Perdue scored a decisive victory on Tuesday, earning the Democratic nomination for governor over challengers Richard Moore and Dennis Nielsen. On an Election Day in which just over 36 percent of registered voters turned out statewide, Perdue gathered 56 percent of votes cast; Moore, the state treasurer, finished with 40 percent; Nielsen, a retired military officer, received 4 percent.

Moore faired slightly better in Orange County, finishing with 45 percent to Perdue’s 52 percent.
In the race for the Republican nominee for governor, Charlotte mayor Pat McCrory turned back four challengers and will face Perdue in the November general election. McCrory won 46 percent of the votes; state Sen. Fred Smith won 37 percent; attorney Bill Graham, nine percent; former state Supreme Court Justice Bob Orr, seven percent; and Elbie Powers, a farm owner, one percent.
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Determined to keep their perfect score in defeating counties’ efforts to adopt a real estate transfer tax, the North Carolina real estate and construction interests, led by the North Carolina Association of Realtors and the North Carolina Homebuilders, have pumped more than $205,000 in cash and in-kind contributions into defeating the initiative in Orange County.

The figures, filed on Monday — the deadline for campaign finance reports for the first quarter and the final weeks leading up to the election — show that the state organizations that have helped organize and fund county-based groups to fight the tax represent the bulk of funding for Citizens for a Better Orange County, which was set up in February to fight the tax.
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An historic spring primary winds up this week with both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama and their supporters criss-crossing the state in search of votes and North Carolinians brave enough to have their televisions on, subjected to a near-endless barrage of state and national campaign ads.

Local and some statewide candidates have been working Orange County rallies and early-voting sites as well.
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Two challengers and the incumbent are running for the North Carolina Court of Appeals seat presently held by Jim Wynn. Wynn, a Cary resident, was first elected to the Court of Appeals in 1990. He served as an associate justice on the North Carolina Supreme Court in 1998. Jewel Ann Farlow is a Gibsonville private-practice attorney. Dean R. Poirier lives in Mount Olive, is an appeals referee and has worked as an adjunct instructor of law at Mount Olive College, North Carolina Wesleyan College, Kaplan University and Liberty University.
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Six candidates are vying for three seats on the Orange County Schools Board of Education. Incumbent Al Hartkopf is running for re-election, challenged by newcomers Eddie Eubanks, Steve Halkiotis, Tony McKnight, Jeff Michalski and Stan Morris.

School board member Dennis Whitling resigned in February, following his arrest on charges of embezzlement. School board member Liz Brown is not running for re-election.
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Four Democratic candidates are running for one District Two seat on the Board of County Commissioners. No Republicans are running for county commissioner in the district.

A 2006 referendum approved by voters increased the board from five to seven members and split the county into two voting districts. With the exception of a portion near I-40 and Whitfield Road, the two new county districts mirror the two school systems’ boundaries, with District Two similar to the Orange County Schools District and District One similar to the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools District.
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Six months ago, the race for North Carolina Senate District 23, which is comprised of Orange and Person counties, was shaping up as a much different kind of contest than the one on the ballot today.

A field of three — Carrboro Alderman John Herrera and two Orange County commissioners, Moses Carey and Mike Nelson — were preparing for at least a three-way contest to fill the seat vacated by a retiring six-term incumbent, Ellie Kinnaird.

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The demonstration will be held at the Orange Enterprise Building on Valley Forge Road in Hillsborough. For more information, contact the Orange County Board of Elections at 245-2350.