It was a close race Tuesday night in the run-off for the Republican nomination for state auditor, but Dave Boliek pulled ahead of his opponent with 53% of the vote, ahead of Jack Clark’s 46.7% of the vote.
“My opponent Jack is a great guy, he is, but he said that the auditor’s office is more like a judge, and I couldn’t disagree more,” Dave Boliek told the Carolina Journal on Monday. “It’s actually more like a prosecutor because you need an active person looking for waste and inefficiency and fraud across state government. You don’t need somebody calling balls and strikes.”
Boliek and Clark were the top two candidates coming out of the March 5th primary but neither of these two candidates achieved the required 30%-plus-one of the vote to avoid a run-offf. Clark received 23.24% (198,793 votes) compared to Boliek’s with 22.10% (189,071 votes), in a Republican primary field of six candidates.
“I’m running because I love the state of North Carolina, North Carolina’s been good to me and I was prompted by the work that we’ve done at the university level on budget reform, where we led the effort across the UNC system in the All-Funds budget,” Boliek told the Carolina Journal. “In the process at Chapel Hill, we discovered a $100 million structural deficit that our state auditor never found. We knew there was room for improvement in that office; I feel like I’m the right person to do it.”
Boliek will face off against incumbent Democrat Jessica Holmes in the general election this fall. Holmes was appointed by Gov. Roy Cooper when former State Auditor Beth Wood, also a Democrat, resigned following controversy stemming from an car accident in a state vehicle. The general election will also feature Libertarian candidate Bob Drach.
“She’s been nonexistent,” Boliek says of Holmes. “I would point to the Durham Public Schools. The auditor’s office ought to have a strike force, a rapid response team, that can go in and assist in really high-profile, important, large dollar amount, public interest financial fiascos. I cannot characterize what’s going on in the Durham Public Schools by any other word than ‘fiasco.’ There’s been nothing from their board, nothing from their previous or interim administration on what the financial issues really are and the public deserves an answer. When I read the general statutes, it appears to me that this falls squarely within the lane of the state auditor. I’m wondering why she hasn’t shown up with the team on their front door, asking to see the books.”
Ahead of the November 5, 2024 general election, the North Carolina State Board of Election will begin mailing absentee ballots on September 6, and they must be returned by 7:30 pm on Election Day. In-person early voting slated to start October 11 and run through November 2, 2024.