Donna Williams has taken over for Susan Bryant as the new chairwoman of the Wake County Republican Party,

Williams, who unsuccessfully ran for the Wake County school board in 2011 against Christine Kushner, was elected at last week's Wake GOP convention. She called for unity after defeating Dale Cooke, who had also run unsuccessfully for Wake County Commissioner last year.

"As greatly successful as we were in 2012, imagine what we can do when the energy, heart, drive, and persistence demonstrated by both slates over the past 5 weeks is now united and refocused directly at our Democratic opposition," Williams wrote last week in the Elephant Express.

Her work includes, pending approval of S325, helping elect a new GOP majority on the school board next year and helping the GOP retain control of the county commissioners.

The initial results indicate that Chris Malone is the only Wake County school board who will advance to state office this year.

With 16 of 18 precincts in, Malone is leading tonight in the state House 35 race with 55.63 percent of the vote over former school board member Lori Millberg. But school board member Debra Goldman is losing in her bid for state auditor and board member John Tedesco is losing his run for state schools superintendent.

In terms of Wake County commissioner, with 122 of 200 precincts reporting,   Paul Fitts and Dale Cooke are winning. If they prevail, Republicans would increase their lead to 6-1 on the commissioners.

UPDATE

With 178 of 200 precincts in, Fitts and Cooke have seen their leads shrunk to slightly above 50 percent.

With 187 of the 200 precincts in, Betty Lou Ward and Caroline Sullivan have now taken narrow leads, which if they hold up would keep the Democrats with three seats on the seven-member board.

The initial results indicate that Goldman and Tedesco did worse in Wake County than they did statewide.

The final Wake County results are in and Malone hung on for a narrow victory, getting 50.57 percent of the vote.

For the commissioners, the counting of the early voting totals sharply shifted the races in favor of the Democrats. Sullivan got 57.04 percent to Cooke's 42.96 percent. Ward got 56.84 percent while Fitts droped to 43.16 percent.

The Wake County Republican Party is officially staying silent on the recent political controversy over Wake County school board members Debra Goldman and Chris Malone.

The new issue of the Elephant Express released Thursday night is the first one sent since the news reports about the Goldman and Malone 2010 police report. The only mention of the two in the Wake GOP e-newsletter is in the list of the 2012 candidates running for office with Goldman for state auditor and Malone for the state House 35 seat.

The newsletter also contains a link to the radio spot that will air for Wake County Board of Commissioner candidates Paul Fitts and Dale Cooke. The spots talk about "focusing education policy on student achievement versus diversity numbers games."

Not surprisingly, the recent firing of Wake County Superintendent Tony Tata and the possible 2013 school bond issue came up at Thursday's forum for candidates for county commissioner.

As noted in today's article by Thomas Goldsmith, the Republican candidates criticized Tata's firing while the Democratic candidates said it was the Democratic board majority's prerogative. They also differed on the need for a bond issue.

Republican candidates Paul Fitts and Dale Cooke called it a "colossal" mistake to fire Tata.

Wake County school board members know for sure at least one of the county commissioners who will be elected this fall.

The filing period closed today with no Republican filing to run for Commissioner James West's District 5 seat. West is running unopposed in the Democratic primary. He's the first person running in an uncontested race for Wake County commissioner since 1994.

West, who was appointed to the board of commissioners in September 2010 to fill a vacancy, has said the school system will remain one of his priorities.

In District 4, Republican Dale Cooke will oppose Democrat Caroline Sullivan. In District 6, Democratic incumbent Betty Lou Ward will run against Republican Paul Fitts. The races are countywide even though the candidates must live in their district.