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Beth Eames, who considers herself a loyal Democrat, helped Republican Mayor Pat McCrory carry her Dilworth precinct with 70 percent of the vote in 2007.
But Tuesday her vote helped swing the precinct at East Boulevard's Greek Orthodox Cathedral to Democrat Anthony Foxx by one vote - part of a dramatic turn there and across the city.
Eames' precinct was one of 30 that flipped from McCrory in 2007 to Foxx on Tuesday, helping explain his 3,239-vote victory over Republican John Lassiter.
Foxx's victory came not only from strong support in the African American community and a massive voter turnout effort. It also was powered by the reversal of those 30 precincts, most of them predominantly white.
To be sure, Foxx piled up a big margin in predominately black precincts. For example, in the 21 precincts where more than 80 percent of voters are nonwhite, he got 11,162 votes to Lassiter's 701 - a gap of almost 10,500 votes that Lassiter's strong support in southeast Charlotte couldn't overcome.
But what may have turned the election were the precincts that had gone to McCrory two years ago. In those, he outpolled Lassiter by 2,281 votes. If those voters had instead stayed with the Republican candidate, Lassiter would have won.
The 30 precincts are scattered around the city, from Steele Creek in the southwest to Elizabeth in the center city to Mallard Creek in the northeast. In 24 of the 30, most of the voters are white.
One precinct that flipped from McCrory to Foxx was 228 in Steele Creek, one of the fastest growing areas of the city.
The precinct is a mix of older, rural homes and new, middle-class subdivisions carved in the countryside. The area is up for grabs politically: Just over half of the registered voters are white, and 50 percent are Democrats.
Two years ago, McCrory won the precinct at Kennedy Middle School with 53 percent of the vote, 256-228. Foxx got 61 percent of the voters there, 312-220.
Democrat Betty Chambers, who has lived in Charlotte for 50 years, voted for McCrory for mayor and governor in 2008. But she pulled the lever for Obama last year and Foxx on Tuesday.
"It's more than party politics for me," said Chambers, an administrator. "It's the person. I just knew more about Foxx than I did with Lassiter. I know Lassiter has been around, I just hadn't heard about him."
She said she was impressed by Foxx's leadership at Davidson, where he was elected student body president.
Hartley LaDuke, a Democrat, moved to Steele Creek from Maine three years ago. He said he was open to voting for a Republican but didn't like Lassiter's background in business.
"We've been in a terrible time in the last year because of the economy," Hartley said. "A lot of the people who were responsible were businesspeople. I thought Foxx would be more sympathetic to a wide range of people."
At the Greek Orthodox Cathedral, McCrory enjoyed a 293-vote cushion in 2007. Foxx won it by one, 300-299. Part of the reason, said Eames, was that McCrory never had a "credible opponent." Over seven elections, he never won with less than 56 percent of the vote, and usually carried over 60 percent.
Eames also found Foxx more appealing than other Democratic nominees.
"I was raised by a single mother, and that appealed to me about Anthony's background," she said. "We have so much diversity in the city that we need someone who will work to be more inclusive."
Unlike his party's other nominees, Foxx also had money. He raised more than $562,000 and took in more than Lassiter in the final weeks.
Democrats also muscled a voter outreach effort that began months ago with the goal of turning out Foxx voters. The state Democratic Party also helped, paying for several mass mailings and putting its own field staff on the ground in Charlotte.
But campaign manager Bruce Clark, a deputy field director for the Obama campaign in the Charlotte area last year, said the campaign stuck with a plan to win on the ground. Foxx bought no billboards but invested heavily in phone lines and mailings.
So extensive was the campaign's outreach that some voters found themselves on the phone with one campaign volunteer while another was knocking at their door.
"A lot of what we were doing is kind of rewriting the playbook of how to win," Clark said Wednesday.
