In the end, it wasn’t even particularly close: Morrisville mayor TJ Cawley cruised to reelection to a third term against two challengers: Satish Garimella, also a Democrat and a 10-year veteran of the Morrisville Town Council, and conservative newcomer Richard Reinhart. 

Cawley won with about 64 percent of the vote to Garimella’s 31 percent and Reinhart’s 5 percent.  

TJ Cawley

Despite not receiving endorsements from a handful of fellow town council members and other elected officials across the county, the self-described “full-time mayor’s” popularity with voters held fast. Cawley did receive support from fellow council members Anne Robotti and Donna Fender; he was also endorsed by the Wake County Democratic Party. 

Speaking to the INDY before the results rolled in on election night, Cawley gave his supporters all the credit.

“Morrisville voters are educated and smart, and they know truth, transparency, and trust matter,” he said. “Those are my values.”

And so what looked like a tough race for the incumbent mayor actually translated to a victory with a wider margin than in 2021, when sitting town council member Liz Johnson ran against him (Cawley won that year with 60 percent of the vote).

Cawley’s density-skeptical point of view—he has been clear that he prefers ownership units over rentals—could prove cumbersome in governing a town in which 30,000 residents live on 10 square miles sandwiched between Cary and RDU International Airport. (His opponent Garimella ran on his record of supporting many more apartment units.) And the mayor will need to continue advocating through his role on the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization (CAMPO) for the funding the town needs to complete various road projects, including NC 54, Airport Boulevard, and Aviation Parkway. And climbing property taxes and traffic are sure to continue to cause issues for Morrisville residents, who are now majority Asian American. 

But Cawley will have a mix of incumbents on the town council, plus a few new faces, to help him tackle the challenges. 

In the race for one open at-large seat on the town council, Harrison Kesling, a professionally licensed mechanical engineer in the architecture, engineering, and construction industry and a political newcomer, came first in a three-way race. Kesling won about 49 percent of the vote to Subba Reddy Madireddy’s 32 percent and Liz Dann’s 19 percent.  

In Morrisville’s southeastern District 2, Ashit Patel, a manager at KPMG, bested Jashi Abhirajan with about 56 percent of the vote to Abhirajan’s 43 percent (write-in candidates won 1 percent of the vote in that race). The Wake County Democratic Party had endorsed Abhirajan, though Patel is also a registered Democrat. 

And finally, in northeastern District 4, Morrisville’s largest, town council incumbent Vicki Scroggins-Johnson, a project management consultant at Artemis Factor, defeated Patty Cheng, winning 50 percent of the vote to Cheng’s 41 percent. Scroggins-Johnson is a registered Democrat, though she didn’t receive an endorsement from the county party this cycle; Cheng is a Republican. 

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