As polls closed at 7:30 p.m. on election day, candidates, supporters and family members gathered at the Alamance County Democratic Party watch party awaiting results of the 2025 municipal election.
Supporters filled Alkimia Mexican Bar and Grill in downtown Burlington to wait for the results to come in. Burlington mayoral candidate Beth Kennett had supporters and family members join her with many wearing sweatshirts and t-shirts from her campaign.
The Nov. 4 election was a nonpartisan election.
The Alamance County Republican Party did not respond to ENN’s inquiry about whether they were hosting a watch party.
Kennett said she had been spending Election Day going to different polling locations in Burlington since the early morning. Kennett said her campaign has knocked on close to 7,000 doors and spent the last weekend of the race handing out campaign flyers to parents on Halloween.
“We’ve done all the things, shown up at places in the community,” Kennett said. “If hard work wins an election, we got this, if money, the influence of money wins, we’ve done the work.”
Beth Kennett's Campaign Manager and daughter, Emily Kennett cries and hugs people after election results are announced at the Alamance County Democratic Party's watch party at Alkimia Mexican Bar and Grill on Nov. 4.
The first results for candidates at the watch party came in at 8:55 p.m. when Lee Walls was elected to the Town of Swepsonville council with a majority of the vote. Swepsonville town council has three seats in which the three incumbents were running a joint campaign together.
“The incumbents sort of ran as a package,” Walls said. “All of their material had all three of their names on them. So I wasn’t running against one person.”
Political director of Elon Democrats, an Elon University organization, Ethan Litman was also in attendance at the watch party. Litman said Elon Democrats has been working with Alamance County Democrats to mobilize college students.
“Just making sure people knew there was an election,” Litman said. “Because there's 7,000 Elon students in a town of 10,000, we are a huge percentage of the population. So no matter how you go, if campus mobilizes, we have a huge influence, and really can make people's lives around us better, even if we're here for a short time.”
Beth Kennett won the mayor seat for Burlington receiving 4,237 votes. Kennett will become the first female mayor in Burlington’s history. In a speech to attendees Kennett thanked supporters and volunteers.
“What I hope to do is to create more avenues for people in the community to share their concerns and their input with city leaders, elected and staff, just to create more ways for them to give input,” Kennett said.
Newly elected Green Level Town Council Member, Patricia Jones cheers after election results are announced at the Alamance County Democratic Party's watch party at Alkimia Mexican Bar and Grill on Nov. 4.
Kennett also said she hopes to look into expanding Burlington City Council from five seats to seven seats to represent more constituents. Former Burlington mayor Ian Baltutis was elected to Burlington City Council. At the event, he wore a Beth Kennett for mayor shirt and said Kennett was the type of leader Burlington needed to bring people together.
Steve Exum, who arrived at the watch party after results were announced, was elected to Elon Town Council, as well. Exum is a new candidate to the town council. He said after living in Elon for 20 years and expressing his concerns, he wanted to get involved. He credits the encouragement he received from others as part of the reason why he wanted to run for office.
“Before I was running, I was involved as someone here to canvass for other candidates, but I literally had people in the party, say, ‘hey, we'd like you to run, we think you'd be a good leader in our community, and we need more people like you.’ And I hadn't really given it much thought until I got encouragement from a few people,” Exum said.
Many attendees of the event emphasized how the results they received tonight were a culmination of years of work.
“We've come a long way from seeing ballots that had a traditional set of names that you saw street signs around the community, to seeing a slate of candidates who maybe didn't even grow up here, but have come to this adopted community, embraced it and got more engaged in it, and there have been lots of trailblazers along the way who haven't won elections, but who have gotten them sort of build relationships in the community, build that trust, and that all came together tonight,” Baltutis said.
Charlotte Pfabe contributed to the reporting of this story.