Lauch Faircloth won with 50.3% of the vote (1,297,892 votes), ahead of Terry Sanford with 46.3% (1,194,015 votes).
The margin between the first two candidates was 4.0 percentage points (103,877 votes). The party margin (Republican share minus Democratic share) was a Republican lead of 4.0 points.
Compared with the previous comparable race in the same area, the party margin moved 1.1 points toward Democrats.
2,577,891 votes were counted in this race, for 5 candidates or options.
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