Mayor Nancy Vaughan won another four-year term for what she calls, “The best job in Greensboro.”

Vaughan won but she didn’t walk away with a victory.  Vaughan, according to the unofficial vote totals, had 13,932 votes for 43 percent.  District 3 City Councilmember Justin Outling had 13,507 votes for 41.7 percent and write-in candidates received 15.2 percent.  It is assumed that most of those write-in votes were for Chris Meadows, who announced on June 13 he was running a write-in campaign for mayor.

Outling won the vast majority of the precincts in predominantly black East Greensboro, which is a switch from the primary when Vaughan won most of those precincts.  It indicates that the Simkins PAC no longer controls the vote in East Greensboro.  In the past a Simkins PAC endorsement resulted in overwhelming vote totals in East Greensboro for those endorsed.

Outling also did well in District 3, which had elected him to the City Council twice.

Other than in District 3 Vaughan dominated the precincts in northwest Greensboro.

When the early voting totals were posted before any precincts had reported Vaughan had 5,980 votes for 47.2 percent to Outling’s 4,762 votes for 37.6 percent.  Every time precinct totals were added to the count Vaughan’s lead diminished, but it never went away.

Outling announced he was running for mayor in December 2020 and Vaughan announced she was running for reelection in February 2021.  At that time the City Council election was scheduled for October and November 2021.

Since then the election was delayed twice with the primary held along with the statewide primary on May 17 and the stand alone general election held Tuesday, July 26.

The long campaign with two mayoral candidates serving on the City Council made for some tense meetings.  Because she was mayor Vaughan usually got the last word, but Outling didn’t make it easy.