THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, November 9, 1994 TAG: 9411090347
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY MASON PETERS AND PAUL SOUTH, STAFF WRITERS
LENGTH: Medium: 54 lines
Republican challenger Walter B. Jones Jr., who attacked Democratic Congressman H. Martin Lancaster as a lackey of a liberal president, appeared headed for victory in the 3rd District congressional race Tuesday night.
Jones nearly split the vote in Wayne County, where Lancaster lives, and piled up big margins in other parts of the district to hold a solid lead with more than half of the 285 precincts reporting, with 53 percent of the votes to 47 percent for Lancaster.
The stunning lead had him poised to claim a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, where his late father was a Democratic fixture for 26 years.
Republicans targeted Lancaster's seat as one they could win, and sent party powerhouses to the district to campaign for Jones, who switched parties to seek a congressional seat.
Among them were Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole and Sen. Jesse Helms. Helms, a North Carolina conservative, said the race with Lancaster was a battle for ``the soul of America.'
Lancaster, watching the returns at Democratic Party headquarters in his hometown of Goldsboro, was seeking a fifth two-year term in Congress. Party faithful were stunned by early returns when Jones pulled ahead, and there were long faces and little noise as the night went on.
At Jones' headquarters in Greenville, Republicans and some Democrats who crossed party lines to vote for Jones were ready to celebrate.
The campaign was one of the meanest in state history. A Jones television ad featuring Lancaster jogging with President Clinton won national attention. The ad criticized Lancaster as being out of touch with the conservative district because of who he had been ``running around'' with in Washington.
Lancaster questioned Jones' attendance record in the Legislature in 1992, when he was running as a Democrat against Eva Clayton in the 1st District primary.
Jones lost the runoff primary to Clayton. He endorsed Republican candidates in the 1992 general election and switched his party affiliation in 1993.
Jones, 51, is a business consultant who served nearly 10 years in the General Assembly before running for Congress in 1992.
Lancaster, 51, served four terms in the state House before being elected to Congress in 1986.
He won that first race with 65 percent of the vote, but by 1992, after the 3rd District was redrawn, his margin dropped to 56 percent. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
Walter B. Jones Jr.
KEYWORDS: ELECTION NORTH CAROLINA RESULTS by CNB