A majority of Beaufort County Republican voters joined a majority of GOP voters in the state’s 3^rd Congressional District on Tuesday to return incumbent U.S. Rep. Walter B. Jones to office for a 12^th-straight term, according to early and incomplete precinct reports.

Jones took a commanding lead in the Republican primary minutes after the polls closed at 7:30 p.m., based on votes cast during the early voting period and absentee ballots. At 8 p.m., the North Carolina State Board of Elections’ website showed Jones winning each county in the 3^rd District, except for Perquimans County, which had not reported results by then. At 8:20 p.m. Jones had 66.32 percent of the votes in the district, followed by Phil Law with 17.61 percent of the vote and Taylor Griffin with 16.07 percent of the votes.

In Beaufort County, Jones had 1,399 votes, Law had 325 votes and Griffin had 250 votes, with all precincts reporting.

In the Democratic primary in the 3^rd District, Ernest T. Reeves took an early lead with 55 percent of the vote compared to 45 percent of the vote for David Allan Hurst. Reeves tallied 124 votes (early voting and absentee ballots) to Hurst’s 97 votes as of 8:25 p.m. Tuesday. Reeves had 507 votes in Beaufort County to Hurst’s 424 votes.

Based on early and incomplete returns, Jones likely would face Reeves in the Nov. 8 general election.

Vote totals are unofficial until canvassed next week by local boards of elections and then certified by the North Carolina State Board of Elections.

The 3^rd Congressional District includes all or part of the following counties: Beaufort, Camden, Carteret, Chowan, Craven, Currituck, Dare, Greene, Hyde, Jones, Lenoir, Onslow, Pamlico, Pasquotank, Perquimans, Pitt and Tyrrell. There are 236 precincts in the district.

Michael R. Morgan, Daniel Roberson, Robert H. Edmunds and Sabra Jean Faires competed for a seat as an associate justice on the N.C. Supreme Court.