For a select few Durhamites, voting locally has become a 20-year habit. According to Durham County records, less than 2,000 voters have shown up to every Durham general election for the past 20 years. Prayson Pate, 63, one of the few registered Republicans on that list, has been reliably voting for 40 years.
Pate consistently shows up for local elections. He wasn’t surprised to learn how few reliable voters there are.
“We have it pretty good,” he says slowly with a southern drawl. “And when things are going well, people don’t feel that they have to be so involved in their government.”
“[People] don’t view things like primaries as being as important as national elections or general elections,” he said. “The local elections are often the most important in terms of the impact on your day to day life.”
Pate grew up in an apolitical family in Sanford, N.C. and became interested in conservative politics during high school. He first voted in Durham as a new student at Duke University. “I was a very avid voter from the very beginning,” he said with pride. “I was registered as soon as I could… I was always very eager to cast my ballot.”
His first vote came at a rapidly changing time. The 1980 presidential contest between Ronald Reagan and incumbent Jimmy Carter created tension on his college campus.
“There was a lot of negativity about the future of the country, a lot of people that felt that things weren’t going the right way,” he said. According to Pate, many students feared what Reagan’s presidency might mean.
“I had a different opinion, so I was happy to vote for him.” The outcome was a win for Pate. “[I] did take a little bit of pleasure seeing the discomfort of some of my fellow students who were not happy with the outcome of the election.”
Motivated to vote
Before retiring, Pate worked in the tech industry first as an engineer, then as co-founder of Overture, a networking solutions company, and finally in marketing. These days, he stays busy playing bridge with friends and as a member of the Durham County Wildlife Club, a hunting and fishing club. Additionally, he serves on the board of the local SCORE chapter, an organization that mentors emerging business owners and entrepreneurs.
Pate raised his three kids in Durham, where his wife works for Discover Durham, the city’s visitors’ bureau.. His two sons went to N.C. State University and UNC-Chapel Hill, while his daughter attended UNC-Wilmington. He still roots for Duke, but his graduate degree in electrical engineering came from N.C. State. “It’s good to have two teams,” he said with a southern drawl and a quick laugh.
While Pate isn’t surprised by low turnout, those numbers matter less than whether those who do vote are well-informed.
“If [people] don’t know enough or care enough to vote… if they’re not informed enough to vote, I would have them stay home,” he said, firmly. “[An uninformed vote] dilutes my vote.”
According to Pate, local government should get back to what he considers the basics.
“[Durham tends to] spend money on a lot of things we probably shouldn’t,” he said, pausing.
“We’re not putting the focus on the things that we should, like ensuring that we have highly functioning schools, that we have a proper police presence, that we’re keeping the roads paved and the sewers clean,” he said.
Pate thinks Durham needs more housing.
“So on one hand, people will be screaming about the lack of housing, and on the other hand, they want to oppose any development, to build new houses… The answer to a housing shortage is to build houses. I mean, it’s that simple, right?”
He also thinks Durham does a better job than many cities when it comes to development. . “If you look at certain large cities like San Francisco… the zoning is so tight there that nobody can build a house, nobody can afford to live there,” he said. “It’s ridiculous.”
“[In] other areas you’ve got complete sprawl. There’s no investment in the required sewer and roads and schools,” he said. “I think we need to strike a balance.” He explains.
Overcoming Polarization
As a longtime registered Republican in Durham, Pate is used to being in the political minority.
He constantly interacts with the other side. “You really don’t have a choice. I mean, most of my friends and colleagues have wildly different political views than me,” he said.
He avoids bringing up politics except with a few people. He picks his conversations carefully, even with his own family. He confides his political beliefs with his children who agree with him, and leaves politics at the door for those who don’t.
Navigating through opposing views means picking and choosing when to speak up.
“I found that some people will volunteer their opinions, and I mistakenly sometimes think there, ‘That’s an invitation to discuss,’ and then I find out that they don’t want discussion,” he said. He values conversations across political lines. He feels like democrats don’t understand his views.
“They take disagreement to mean hate or fear,” he said. “If you disagree with a person of a certain category, you’re some type of ‘phobe.’”
Pate reads national outlets that align with his views and others that don’t, and he values local journalism for understanding local issues. He often consults which PACs endorse candidates, and make judgments from there.
With elections coming up, Pate will again show up to the ballot box. “I continue to vote to show that, hopefully there’s a growing set of people who are not necessarily going to go along with the wide majority here in town,” he said. “But in most cases, my candidate does not win.”
Photo above, Prayson Pate, Republican in a Democratic town. Photo by Jack Regan – The 9th Street Journal
