After years of shifting to the political right, a majority of Scotland County voters picked Democrats in every partisan race on the ballot on Tuesday.
Two Republican county commissioners—Bo Frizzell and Tim Ivey—lost their seats. That means Democrats will regain a 4-3 majority on the board, after the GOP took control in 2024 for the first time in modern history.
In the county’s first partisan school board election, Republican Jason Clark lost his seat.
Voters elected Roger Alford, a Democrat, as the new sheriff. He will replace longtime sheriff Ralph Kersey, a Republican who did not seek reelection this year.
And voters picked 11-term incumbent Democrat Garland Pierce for the state House for the first time since 2020. Pierce had continued to win because his district also includes Hoke County, where voters favored him.
The blue wave also included top-of-ballot-races: Democrat Roy Cooper won Scotland County as he cruised to victory for a U.S. Senate seat. Mark Harris, a Republican whose U.S. House district includes Scotland County, won reelection but trailed his opponent by more than 7 percentage points in Scotland County.
“We worked extremely hard since the [2024] election to ensure that our party was organized locally,” said Scotland County Democratic Party Chair Darrell (BJ) Gibson Jr., a former county commissioner who lost his reelection that year as part of Republican surge. “To see all the hard work we put in actually made a difference, it made me grateful.”
Scotland County was a Democratic stronghold for decades. Hillary Clinton won the county by more than 7.5 points in 2016. But four years later they picked Donald Trump and some other down-ballot Republicans. Like many voters across rural southeastern North Carolina, some said the Democratic party no longer represented their socially conservative values.
But many voters this year were frustrated with the GOP over high prices and polarizing rhetoric, Gibson said.
Joe Patton, chair of the Scotland County Republican Party, said unaffiliated voters—who make up 39% of the county’s electorate—helped boost the GOP to victory in previous elections. (About 37.5% of registered voters in the county are Democrats, while about 23% are Republicans.)
Patton said he suspects unaffiliated voters contributed to the Democratic swing on Tuesday.
“We’re outnumbered three to one in Scotland County,” he said of Republicans, “so we have to get that unaffiliated vote. If they are disillusioned, we can forget it.”
Scotland has long had one of the lowest voter turnout rates among North Carolina’s 100 counties. About 47.5% of voters in the county cast ballots this election, compared to nearly 54% statewide. But Scotland County saw a higher turnout than the 2022 midterms, when 46% of local voters went to the polls.
Patton said some voters blamed local Republicans for a spike in property taxes. In Scotland County, where more than a quarter of residents live in poverty, many homeowners were shocked by surging property values after this year’s state-mandated revaluation. County commissioners lowered the property tax rate from 99 cents to 69.9 cents per $100 valuation, but many homeowners will still pay more.
Patton also said the recent bankruptcy deal involving the former St. Andrews University campus likely hurt incumbent commissioners. Creditors are expected to sell the property.
Frizzell, who has served on the Board of Commissioners since 2022, lost by 17 percentage points to Democrat Ronnie Nicholson. Ivey, a commissioner since 2018, finished last in a four-person race in which voters picked two candidates.
Jason Butler, Republican candidate for sheriff who lost by more than 6 percentage points, said in a Facebook post late Tuesday that he would continue to work with Alford. Both currently work for the Scotland County Sheriff’s Office; Butler is a captain, and Alford is a major.
“The challenges facing our county and sheriff’s office remain,” Butler wrote, “and meeting those challenges will require cooperation, unity, and a shared commitment to our community.”
Gibson said local Democrats focused on bringing people together after many voters said they were tired of divisive politics. For the past two years, he said, party volunteers have called voters to hear about their top issues. Party representatives have attended community fairs and held “No Kings” and “Good Trouble” protests. And volunteers have knocked on a lot of doors, Gibson said, including over 9,000 in the final two months leading to the election.
Gibson said the party also engaged with Young Democrats of Scotland County and Democratic Women of Scotland County.
“What we have been very adamant about is making room at the table for everybody,” Gibson said. “We’ve just tried to make sure every citizen knew they mattered, that we cared. And our participation has probably increased by 150%.”