ASHEVILLE - Vijay Kapoor, Sheneika Smith and Vice Mayor Gwen Wisler have been elected to Asheville City Council, according to unofficial results.

Kapoor, a South Asheville neighborhood activist, was propelled to a first-place finish by residents of his region, but also by a strong showing in other parts of Asheville, including the north and Kenilworth, according to election data. In all he won 20 of 41 precincts.

A municipal finance consultant, Kapoor will be the first Asian-American council member.

Smith, is a first-time candidate like Kapoor, and won nine precincts, including areas with high numbers of African-American voters. Her election will mean there are two black council members for the first time in 26 years. That's despite Asheville's shrinking African-American population.

Wisler, the vice mayor and only incumbent, fought to keep her place on the body, promising to support firefighters and police while working on community trust with officers. Safe streets and multimodal transportation were also key issues. She won no precincts outright but beat fourth-place finisher Kim Roney by nearly 1,600 votes. Still, Roney, an East West Asheville transit activist, won eight precincts.

In the mayor's race, incumbent Esther Manheimer beat challenger Martin Ramsey, while voters overwhelmingly voted against a state law splitting Asheville into council districts.

The results:

City Council

Vijay Kapoor: 10,491 (23 percent)

Sheneika Smith: 9,170 (20 percent)

Gwen Wisler: 8,387 (18 percent)

Kim Roney: 6,801 (15 percent)

Rich Lee: 6,276 (14 percent)

Dee Williams: 4,663 (10 percent)

Other: 207

To be final, the Buncombe County Board of Elections must certify the numbers during a Nov. 17 canvass.

The order was similar to the way the top six candidates finished in the primary when Kapoor, Smith and Wisler were the top three, followed by Williams, Lee and Roney.

'No chance' for South Asheville candidate

When he launched his campaign in February, Kapoor said many told him a South Asheville resident didn’t stand a chance to be on the council.

“What I learned tonight is that anyone from any part of the city can win as long as they have a great volunteer base, and they talk about issues that they care about,” he said.

The strategy worked in the 12-way Oct. 10 primary where Kapoor finished first by a 1,500-vote margin.

In Tuesday's general election Kapoor received 23 percent of all votes, dominating South Asheville precincts. At Roberson High, he earned 1,126 votes, more than one-third of all votes cast for the six candidates. He also earned the most votes at New Hope Presbyterian Church, his home precinct.

But Kapoor also performed well in other parts of the city. In the north, he won three districts, including St. Eugene’s Catholic Church in North Asheville, where he received 735 votes. In Kenilworth he had the most votes with 416.

Kapoor said he focused on some issues such as city spending and traffic, which resonated with voters citywide.

“We ran this race throughout the city,” he said. “We didn’t want to be just a South Asheville candidate, and we worked really hard, and I think the numbers bore that out.”

Darren Poupore, an 18-year South Asheville resident, said he didn't vote for any incumbents. Involved in his homeowner's association, Poupore has been active in neighborhood discussions about a nearby proposed apartment complex. The project has been approved, he said, though construction has not started.

Poupore said he's looking for candidates who will seek neighborhood input and improve the process for development decisions. He understands there's often a "not-in-my-backyard" mentality, he said, but "the reality is there may be a reason people are voicing concerns."

Split endorsements

Kapoor also voted for Tuesday’s other winners, Gwen Wisler and Sheneika Smith.

“I think it’s a really good group coming in,” he said. “I think we have different views on different issues, but these are people who care deeply about the city, and I think, have integrity.”

The top three are also the same endorsed by Manheimer during her own campaign for mayor.

Other endorsements though split that trio and offered different assortments.

Councilman Cecil Bothwell, who lost in the primary, for example, endorsed Lee, a neighborhood activist from Haw Creek, as well as Smith and Roney, an East West Asheville piano teacher, bartender and transit activist.

Smith and Roney ran together, sharing campaign ads.

Smith: Demographics of power changed

Tuesday night, Smith called the victory "bittersweet" because of Roney's close loss.

"I was really looking forward to working with Kim," she said. "I really respect her work in the community and respect not only her politics, but her intelligence."

A fourth-generation Asheville native, Smith left the city to go to college and then for work. She returned to Asheville when she was 30 and a mother of two.

She didn't expect to become active in politics.

"When I first came back I was really coming to take a break and raise my daughters," she said.

But she came back to find the once-dead downtown booming, but with few minorities present in the city center, a change from her childhood.

Smith began working to get African-Americans active in city social life and civic affairs. She said she was "inspired and informed by a lot of racial equity and social justice movements."

On Tuesday, she won two precincts in the north, Montford and St. Mark's Lutheran in the north, as well as several precincts home to many black voters, including the Wesley Grant Center, Stephen's Lee Community Center and Shiloh.

"I am definitely excited," she said Tuesday. "It feels like the hard work has paid off and not just the hard work from campaigning, but the hard work of trying to pull the community together and bring hope back to the community."

Now with Kapoor and Keith Young, a current councilman who is also African-American, serving, the "political conversation" will continue to change, she said.

"I think the demographics of power have definitely changed," she said.

Arrone Weston Jr., a soon-to-be Mission Health transportation employee, stood in the steady downpour Tuesday morning outside of the Grant Center, south of downtown, to campaign for Smith. The Grant Center has the highest number of African-American voters in the city.

"I just hope everybody comes out and shows support," Weston Jr. said. "If we want change, we've got to be the people to speak up and vote. That's our job if we want the change to come through."

Wisler hangs on

The only incumbent in the race, Wisler, hung on to her seat despite a spirited race from challengers criticizing city responses to growth, housing affordability and a proliferation of hotels.

A former CEO of several corporations including outdoor equipment maker Coleman, Wisler first ran in 2013, coming in first with 9,171 votes or 28 percent of the total.

She was selected as vice mayor by her fellow council members part-way through her four-year term.

During her time she took hard stances against hotel construction and got into the nuts-and-bolts of finances, restructuring funding of the WNC Nature Center and cutting losses at Aston Park Tennis Center.

She expressed some relief Tuesday at results where she came in third with 8,387 votes or 18 percent.

While Wisler didn't win any precincts outright, she performed well in places such as South Asheville's Roberson area where she got the second-most votes after Kapoor with 833. In St. Eugene's, a North Asheville precinct also won by Kapoor, she again came in second with 664 votes.

Wisler said she looked forward to guiding the spending on $74 million in bond money for transportation, housing and parks.

“It feels great to win after being nervous all day about this,” she said to a group of supporters at Pack’s Tavern. “Looking ahead, I am really focused on the bond funding projects and to working alongside my new teammates.”

Lee: Will remain a voice

Lee was circumspect over his loss, with the two-time candidate noting that the votes he generated in this election would have been enough to propel him to victory when he first ran in 2015.

"I’m really proud of the race that I ran in every measure that improved on where I was in 2015," he said.

Working against him were the endorsements by Manheimer and Kapoor of the three candidates who went on to win, he said.

Lee said he would remain active as a member of the Greenway Committee and Multimodal Commission, things that are "obviously important to Asheville voters and the people of Asheville," he said.

He would also continue to moderate the popular "Asheville Politics" Facebook page, that he co-founded more than five years ago and that now has 6,700 members.

Roney and Williams did not respond to phone calls Tuesday night.

Mayor's race: Manheimer wins big

Manheimer cruised to her second term in office, handily defeating challenger Martin Ramsey. Unofficial results had Manheimer claiming more than 80 percent of the votes.

Manheimer, an attorney, said she was honored that voters re-elected her, and she will not take the large victory margin for granted.

“I think this election has been important because it helped me have an opportunity to hear from voters about what their concerns are, and I’m hearing a lot about growth and growth issues,” Manheimer said. “I’m hearing a lot about equity and equity issues. I’m not going to forget that. I’m not going to take this election for granted. I’m going to take those comments to heart and work hard for the next four years for Asheville.”