Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, November 3, 1993 TAG: 9311030200
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C3 EDITION: STATE
SOURCE: Lon Wagner
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
With 34 of 39 precincts reporting. Wes Naff (D) 7,786 (52 percent) Allen Dudley (R) 6,857 (46 percent) Jerry Johnson (I) 426 (3 percent)
Democrat Wesley Naff III was leading the race for the 9th District House of Delegates seat. But late Tuesday, the race was still too close to call.
Republican Allen Dudley was swamped by Naff in Franklin County, historically Democratic territory. Naff took 58 percent of the vote in Franklin County. But Dudley had a solid lead in Floyd County, though that county's few voters may make it difficult for Dudley to make up ground.
The 9th District House seat opened up this spring when Rocky Mount lawyer Willard Finney announced he was stepping down after 12 years in the General Assembly.
The race pitted two Rocky Mount businessmen - Naff, 38, runs a real estate company - who brought markedly different styles to the area's political scene.
Naff mixes a nice-guy, aw-shucks demeanor with his Virginia Military Institute background.
Dudley was a hard-charging, take-no-prisoners campaigner, who perhaps is better characterized as a "conservative" than a Republican.
Both candidates listed their top priorities as job creation and improving education. With Naff espousing fiscal conservatism, Dudley often took the offensive in the campaign in trying to do something to give him an upper hand in the traditionally Democratic district.
But some voters Tuesday suggested that Dudley's aggressive style may have worked against him. In fact, a Republican campaign worker wearing a Dudley sticker said she had voted for Naff. She asked not to be identified.
The worker said she made her decision two weeks ago when a newspaper quoted Dudley as saying he would tell House Speaker Thomas Moss to "go to hell" once he got to Richmond. "That's not very Christian," the woman said.
A voter in Boones Mill said the Naff campaign literature he got in the mail helped him make up his mind about Naff.
"I thought it presented him as having good character, as a man with integrity and an eye for the future," said Herschel Fike, who lives south of Boones Mill.
by CNB