RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — "American Idol" singer Clay Aiken won
what had been a hotly contested Democratic primary for a North Carolina
congressional seat according to a final, unofficial vote count that was
posted Tuesday, a day after the accidental death of his closest rival.
Aiken
will face Republican incumbent Renee Ellmers in November in the
GOP-leaning district where Mitt Romney won nearly six in 10 votes in
2012. Ellmers won by 56 percent that year and is looking for a third
term. The county-by-county tally of the 2nd Congressional District race
posted by the state Tuesday confirmed Aiken got more than 40 percent of
the vote needed to win the three-candidate race.
On Monday,
second-place finisher Keith Crisco, 71, died after falling at his home.
Hours earlier, campaign manager Christine Botta said they had counted
the absentee votes in two key counties, forcing Crisco to acknowledge
defeat. He had decided to concede his loss to Aiken on Tuesday, she
said.
"Keith and I talked in detail about the fact that the votes weren’t there," Botta said.
Aiken
and Crisco each picked up a handful of votes after the last of the
absentee ballots returned by a Monday deadline were counted, according
to results on the State Board of Elections website.
The results
will become official after review by the state elections board. That
meeting isn’t yet set, Elections board spokesman Joshua Lawson said, but
is tentatively scheduled for May 22.
Crisco slipped and fell while stepping through the front door of his home in Asheboro, about 65 miles
west of Raleigh.
"We
know that he fell in the threshold as he was going in his house," said
Asheboro city manager John Ogburn, who spoke with rescue workers sent to
the scene and has known Crisco for more than a decade.
"It was
just a total freak accident," said Brad Crone, a Raleigh political
consultant and friend who discussed Crisco’s concession decision with
the candidate about two hours before his death. "The truth is stranger
than fiction."
Crisco’s funeral was scheduled for Friday.
Aiken
is an openly gay man in a district populated with many socially
conservative, evangelical Christians. He said that during the primary he
was never asked about his orientation except by reporters.
Ellmers,
a 50-year-old nurse from Dunn, rode the tea party wave that shook up
Congress in 2010. But she was attacked this year by fellow conservatives
for backing a formula on immigration that the GOP House leadership
advanced in January. That plan would allow an estimated 11 million
people living in the U.S. illegally to stay in the country if they paid a
fine but would not allow them to qualify for citizenship.
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