Mayor Nancy Vaughan handily won the mayoral primary with 45 percent of the vote to 35 percent for District 3 City Councilmember Justin Outling.
Vaughan had 18,003 votes to 14,121 for Outling.
Vaughan and Outling will face each other again in the general election on Tuesday, July 26.
Mark Cummings finished third with 10 percent for 4,093 votes and Eric Robert fourth with 9.53 percent for 3,817 votes.
Outling has been running for mayor since December 2020, back when the election was scheduled for October and November 2021. He has raised far more money than Vaughan and has been running an active campaign for nearly 18 months. Having the election delayed twice could be seen as an advantage for a challenger, since it provides more time for them to campaign.
Vaughan is running for her fourth term as mayor and has tremendous name recognition. She was first elected to the City Council in 1997 representing District 4 and served until 2001 when she did not run for reelection. In 2009 Vaughan was elected to an at-large seat and served until she ran for mayor for the first time in 2013.
Outling is making his first citywide run. He was originally appointed to the District 3 council seat in 2015 and easily won election to a two-year term in 2015 and a four-year term in 2017.
The precinct results indicate that Outling has a lot of work to do between now and July 26. Outling only won 13 of 108 precincts and most are in City Council District 3, which Outling currently represents.
Vaughan, who is white, won nearly all of the predominantly black precincts in east Greensboro over Outling who is black. One of the precincts Outling won in east Greensboro is G68, which votes on the NC A&T State University campus, but he won that precinct with three votes to two votes for Vaughan.
In several precincts in east Greensboro Outling finished third behind Vaughan and Cummings, who is black.
When Outling announced his candidacy Vaughan appeared vulnerable on economic development, but the announcement in December of Toyota coming to the Greensboro-Randolph Megasite and in January of Boom Supersonic coming to the Piedmont Triad International Airport turned the tables on that issue.
Greensboro is really dumb. Probably the dumbest city in nc.
Hey we’re not poor.
Please , somebody unseat this woman. Anybody….
Listen closely. You can hear the City of Greensboro being flushed.
I think it’s stopped up. I can still smell something…
Nancy Vaughn is so into herself. I cannot believe Blacks are falling for this charlatan.
Nancy offered them more gibs.
Queen Nancy. Makes Hillary look good
Unbelievable.
Pitiful- same anti police- giving their own council members money for special projects with no accountability and failing to represent ALL the citizens of Greensboro
That is sure an odd way of defining “winning” a primary. If getting the majority of the votes in a single precinct is a “win” of that precinct then logically doesn’t losing 55% of the city-wide vote to other candidates qualify as a big time loss? Especially with all the advantages an incumbent enjoys? Despite claiming credit for every piece of regional economic good news and having the name recognition that comes from eight years as mayor and close to twenty in elected office the mayor “lost” Greensboro 45% to 55%. She has a mountain to climb between now and the general election because few of those 55% who voted against her are likely to rally to her support.