OXFORD — A three-way race yielded a three-way split of the ballots in this year’s election for Granville County sheriff, with unofficial returns showing Democrat Robert Fountain Jr. the likely winner with 38.6% of the vote.
Fountain received 8,503 votes, with unaffiliated candidate Chris Smoot in second place with 7,257 votes (32.9%) and Republican nominee Vance Johnson trailing with 6,298 (28.6%).
The results remain unofficial until elections officials rule on the admissibility of and count provisional ballots, and add in any late-arriving mail-in ballots. They will certify the outcome following a canvass on Nov. 18.
Nonetheless, Fountain’s 1,246-vote lead appeared solid enough that he will begin attending a training course for new sheriffs on Monday at UNC Chapel Hill. Johnson, meanwhile, publicly conceded, taking to his campaign’s Facebook page to congratulate Fountain on “a good race and win.”
“Yesterday, voters of Granville County spoke to an acceptance of a new vision and of a new direction for the Granville County Sheriff’s Office,” Fountain said. “That new vision and new direction is based upon trust, accountability and integrity. With those core values it is my intent to lead the Granville County Sheriff’s Office in a new direction to repair the public’s trust, increase the morale [there] and make service to our community a priority.”
He added, “I would ask that the deputies, detention staff and personnel at the Granville County Sheriff’s Office to work alongside me to accomplish these goals of repairing the public’s trust and being more accountable. Thank you to my family, my team and supporters for making this dream a reality.”
Smoot couldn’t be reached for comment via email, and didn’t update his campaign Facebook page with a reaction after Tuesday’s results came in.
Presuming certification of the outcome, Fountain will replace suspended Sheriff Brindell Wilkins and appointed stand-in Sheriff John Hardy as of Dec. 5.
Fountain’s mention of repairing the public’s trust was an obvious allusion to the issues that have Wilkins and two former deputies facing criminal charges, and that put another deputy behind bars after a jury found him guilty of falsifying training records at Wilkins’ behest.
Smoot — the current chief deputy of the sheriff’s office — also faces an SBI investigation after county Republicans accused him of electioneering on the job.
Fearing a three-way split that would work in Fountain’s favor, the Granville County GOP tried to have Smoot thrown off the ballot this summer by challenging the validity of the signatures on the petition he filed to get on it.
Party leaders and lawyers alleged many of the signatures weren’t a close match for those already in the public record for the voters who allegedly signed them. But the county elections board rejected the challenge after a number of the voters the GOP singled out — prominent local business figures among them — testified that they had in fact signed to put Smoot on the ballot.
Smoot’s later campaign-finance disclosures indicated that he was getting support from fellow deputies and other well-known citizens.
But as the race unfolded, one thing that kept it from being a straight fight between continuity and change was that Johnson accepted and touted an endorsement from former stand-in Sheriff Charles Noblin — who had planned to run this year as a Republican until investigators determined one of his firearms qualifications was among those that had been falsified.
The assistant chief of the Henderson Police Department, Johnson indicated on Wednesday that he has no regrets about his campaign’s strategy or execution.
“All along the way, we would always look at what we were doing, and how we did it, and we knew we were doing as much as we could do,” Johnson said. “That certainly makes today a lot easier. When you look back, I just don’t think there’s anything I could have done different.”
On Facebook and in an interview, Johnson also noted that the Henderson police and Granville sheriff’s office have common interests when it comes to preventing and fighting crime in the region.
“I think Mr. Fountain is a good guy; we’ve had good conversations,” Johnson said. “When I congratulated him last night, I told him I work 10 miles away. I want our agencies to work together. Whatever I can do to help, just let me know.”
Fountain has spent much of his law enforcement career working for the N.C. Department of Public Safety. Asked how he can build support after receiving a bit more than a third of the votes, he said it comes down to one thing: “Do the work.”
“I appeal to the people who didn’t support me to look to the body of work we present to them, and give us a fair opportunity for us to do right before them,” he said, adding that he’ll “ask them to work alongside us also.”
Precinct-level numbers indicate that Fountain won five precincts in and around Oxford, and two in the Butner-Creedmoor area. Johnson led the field in two precincts in suburbanizing southeast Granville, and Smoot was the favorite of voters in five precincts in rural portions of the county.
The unofficial totals show that in most places, Fountain ran behind the totals of state Rep. Terry Garrison, an incumbent Democrat who lost to Republican challenger Frank Sossamon in a district that covers all of Vance County and most of Granville except the two southeastern precincts that Johnson won.
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