Donald, Bernie, and Tom
And boy, am I bad at predicting how Ocracokers will vote!
I guessed that Hillary Clinton would win on Ocracoke, but even though she took Hyde County and North Carolina, Ocracoke was feelin' the Bern! Bernie Sanders beat our future first female president with 142 votes to her 122. The other six island Dems voted for Rocky Roque de la Fuente (2), Martin O'Malley (1), and No Preference (3). No Preference was also popular on the mainland. S/he came in 3rd with 8.57% of the vote, ahead of both O'Malley and de la Fuente.
Ocracoke's Republican voters chose Donald Trump! (I guessed Kasich. I'm a diehard Buckeye.) Yes, 31 of your friends and neighbors voted for to Make America Great Again. As for the others, 19 liked the Ohio governor, 16 picked Ted Cruz, and 6 voted for Marco Rubio. (In mainland news, Santorum got 1 vote in Swan Quarter, Carson got 1 vote in Englehard, and Chris Christie got 1 vote in Lake Landing.)
There were exactly 2 votes cast in Hyde County for Libertarian candidates. One was absentee (precinct unknown) and the other was on Ocracoke!
Congrats to Tom Pahl, who's a shoe-in to be our next county commissioner! He beat incumbent John Fletcher in the Democratic primary, so, unless someone attempts an aggressive write-in campaign, there's no Republican or anyone else running against him.
It was Ocracoke that tipped the scale for Tom, of course. John Fletcher won in 4 out of 6 of the mainland precincts, where he is better known than Tom, but he won by small margins that couldn't make up for his loss on the island. With the Ocracoke race ending at 188–85 in Tom's favor, victory was secured for the challenger!
1431 citizens voted in Hyde County (including early voting, absentee, and provisional ballots) out of 3406 registered voters. That's a 42% voter turnout. Ummm, that's a little embarrassing. 957 Dems, 415 Repubs, and 2 Libertarians voted in Hyde County. Where was everyone else?
As it turns out, Ocracoke did really well by comparison. Dare County had a 36% voter turnout; statewide it was 35%. Sigh.
To find out the Hyde County results of other county- and state-wide races, click here. (Click on "view contest details" to see how Ocracoke and other precincts voted.)
UPDATE: A comment/question below asked about voter turnout for Ocracoke. Ocracoke has 774 registered voters. 283 people voted on Election Day and 71 more voted in the One-Stop Early Voting. That's a total of 354, but we could have a few more trickle in.
"That number includes the mail-in absentee ballots that we received before Election Day," explained Viola Williams, who is director Hyde County's election office. "But people can put their mail-in ballot in the mail on Election Day, as long as it's postmarked by that day, we will count it. We also have some provisional ballots. The final total will be counted next Tuesday on canvassing day."
On canvassing day, the Hyde County primary election will be officially certified.
Given the pretty accurate numbers we have, Ocracoke voter turnout was 45.7%, better than the county as a whole. Go, Ocracoke!
