Note: A version of this report ran in The Dive, a free weekly newsletter produced by WHQR and The Assembly. You can find out more here.
After 20 years under former District Attorney Ben David, prosecutors in New Hanover and Pender counties had grown used to an office largely insulated from partisan politics. That changed when David resigned, and the race to replace him went negative.
In September, Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper appointed Rebecca Zimmer Donaldson to temporarily replace David through the end of the year, setting up a tense mid-campaign transition period; Zimmer Donaldson's appointment — over David's objections — created a situation where Smith was essentially campaigning against his boss.
Earlier in the year, Republican candidate Jason Smith criticized his Democratic rival Zimmer Donaldson as lacking experience. He cautioned attendees at a GOP event that she might not hew to the same moderate path as David.
Zimmer Donaldson’s retaliation—a series of attack ads that began last month—claimed Smith had gone soft on crime. They also highlighted Smith’s case involving an undocumented migrant accused of sexually assaulting a child. The ads drew strong objections from Smith, David, and the majority of the prosecutors in the office.
Those prosecutors signed a petition, asking both candidates to avoid negative campaigning. When Zimmer Donaldson’s campaign continued the ads, some prosecutors took to social media—others sent an anonymous letter to media outlets, warning of further dysfunction and possibly even mass resignations.
Now that preliminary results are in, it looks like those prosecutors will stand down and the office will start to return to normal. While New Hanover County was a close race, Smith won decisively more votes in Pender County and is the presumptive winner.
Smith said office morale has already improved, and that his first priority after he’s sworn in come January will be “getting the office back together.”
"You've heard how it's been for you know, for the last month or so, we need to make sure that our office comes back together, unified. And that's priority number one," Smith told WHQR in a phone call.
After that, Smith said he’d build for himself the community relationships that David had established over two decades—no small task.
Zimmer Donaldson said she planned to complete her term as interim District Attorney but would not continue as a prosecutor after Smith is sworn in.
"After my term expires, I do not plan to work for Jason Smith," she wrote in a text to WHQR.
