Durham County will have a new sheriff and district attorney after Tuesday’s primary election.
Clarence Birkhead unseated incumbent Sheriff Mike Andrews. Birkhead won 69 percent of votes to Andrews’s 31 percent, more than reversing the results of a 2014 match between the two. Birkhead will be the county’s first black sheriff.
Satana Deberry edged out incumbent District Attorney Roger Echols by an eight-point margin.
Both Deberry and Birkhead celebrated at a party hosted by the People’s Alliance, whose PAC arm endorsed each. It was an event that brought out protesters accused of toppling a Confederate monument downtown last year, Latinx community organizers, city staff and officials, PA volunteers and TV reporters.
With just over half of precincts reporting results, the crowd was already calling both the races for DA and sheriff.
Neither the sheriff or district attorney race includes a Republican primary, so Tuesday’s election effectively decides these seats. Nonpartisan races for four school board positions were also determined Tuesday night; incumbents were easily re-elected to all four seats.
“You heard it here first,” Tom Miller, People’s Alliance PAC coordinator said standing on a booth above a cheering crowd at 106 Main. “We have a new district attorney. We have a new Durham County sheriff and we have an exceptional school board.”
The crowd roared with applause, and celebrated with the Wobble Dance.
As early voting totals rolled in, Birkhead quickly took a two-to-one lead over Andrews.
“We’ve got to do everything we can possibly do to keep families together, to not cooperate with ICE — that work starts today,” Birkhead said. “We have to do everything we can possibly do to clean up our jail, to treat individuals who are incarcerated with humanity and dignity and give them the services they need. We’re going to keep Durham safe, get guns off the street, and work together for a new Durham.”
Birkhead previously worked as the chief of police at Duke University and with the Town of Hillsborough.
A thirty-eight-year veteran of Durham law enforcement, Andrews was sworn in as sheriff in 2012 after retiring Sheriff Worth Hill selected him to finish out his term. He won just five Durham precincts, in the northern and eastern-most parts of the county.
Andrews had in uphill battle in a progressive city trying to resist the Trump presidency and a Republican-run state government. He’s faced criticism for deaths at the jail, conditions for inmates there particularly those with mental health needs, and his office’s blanket policy of honoring constitutionally-problematic ICE detainers — essentially a request from ICE that a local jail hold a person booked at the facility beyond when they would have otherwise been released.
Just this morning, he was called out after his campaign Facebook page responded to a racist comment warning that “immigrants and minorities will FLOCK to the polls” by saying “Amen.” Andrews told WNCN the comment doesn’t reflect him or his campaign.
Birkhead and Andrews squared off in 2014. In that contest, Andrews won 56 percent of the vote, to Birkhead’s 38 percent.
Deberry also took an early, albeit slimmer lead, over Echols.
Deberry is the director of the North Carolina Housing Coalition, a position she will resign. She was previously a criminal defense attorney and has been licensed by the North Carolina Bar since 1994.
Echols, who was endorsed by the Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People, has served as District Attorney for four year and has been a prosecutor for twenty years.
Daniel Meier, a criminal defense attorney for sixteen years, won about 11 percent of votes cast.North Durham split between Echols and Meier, with Echols also carrying some precincts in Southwest Durham.
The three-way race had become a battle over who had the most reform-minded ideas and the ability to implement them.
“Durham is ready for change,” Deberry told the INDY Tuesday night. “The status quo is not enough.”
Before the crowd, Deberry gave a shout-out to her kids and an effort in Durham Wednesday to bail black women out of jail ahead of Mother’s Day.
“As the black mother of black children it is important to me, vitally important to me, that we live in a community where everybody is treated fairly and that we live in a community where we are committed to keeping everyone safe,” she said.
Echols’s supporters argued Echols had, in addition to stabilizing a troubled office, implemented changes in the office to try to prevent more people from receiving convictions or jail time. Deberry’s supporters, on the other hand, felt those changes were too little too late and were encouraged by moral stances she took during her campaign on issues like the death penalty, money bail and juvenile justice.
