Orange County voters reelected three incumbent Orange County Commissioners and welcomed one new commissioner, according to Orange County voting results.
Phyllis Portie-Ascott was elected to the Orange County Board of County Commissioners District 2 seat. Jean Hamilton and Marilyn Carter were elected to the Orange County Board of County Commissioners District 1 seats. Amy Fowler was elected as the Orange County Board of County Commissioners At-Large member.
As of 8:56 p.m., Portie-Ascott won 76.16 percent of the vote over Republican candidate H. Nathan Robinson. Jean Hamilton and Marilyn Carter were the only two candidates who ran for the District 2 seats. Amy Fowler ran unopposed for the at-large seat.
The four candidates ran on a slate, with Portie-Ascott, Hamilton and Fowler all as incumbents and Carter as the sole newcomer.
Portie-Ascott was first appointed to the BOCC in February 2023 when the seat was left vacant after N.C. Rep. Reneé Price (D-Caswell, Orange) was elected to the North Carolina General Assembly. She previously served as the first vice chairperson for the Orange County Democratic Party and also served on the Northern Orange NAACP leadership team.
INDY Week, NC State AFL CIO and the Northern Orange Black Voters Alliance all endorsed Portie-Ascott.
Hamilton was first elected to the BOCC in 2020 and has previously served on the Chapel Hill Carrboro City Schools Board of Education and the Board of Directors of Women AdvaNCe for four years. Some of Hamilton’s top priorities throughout the campaign included supporting vulnerable residents, investing in young people through funding of public schools, developing the economy and protecting the environment, according to her campaign website.
Price, Town of Chapel Hill Mayor Jessica Anderson and Triangle Blog Blog endorsed Hamilton.
Carter is an electrical engineer and currently a member of the Orange County Planning Board. On the planning board, she works on the Commission for Mental Health, Developmental Disabilities and Substance Abuse. She also served as the chair of the Orange County Democratic Party from 2019 to 2021.
