Terry Sanford won with 50.9% of the vote (780,967 votes), ahead of James T. Broyhill with 49.1% (753,881 votes).
The margin between the first two candidates was 1.8 percentage points (27,086 votes). The party margin (Republican share minus Democratic share) was a Democratic lead of 1.8 points.
Compared with the previous comparable race in the same area, the party margin moved 5.6 points toward Democrats. The winning party changed.
1,534,848 votes were counted in this race, for 2 candidates or options.
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