A famous Winston Churchill quote says, “Never, never, never give up.”

Today, that quote must be the driving force behind North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory.

Never give up.

When I walked into the Glenwood Ballroom of the Raleigh Marriott Hotel last night, I had no idea that the night was going to be so great, yet so awful, all at once.

As the numbers for the night began rolling in on the big screens to either side of the ballroom, the room was electric.

There were college kids draped in Trump flags, huddled under one of the screens and going nuts every time the new numbers showed Trump ahead.

Press from everywhere milled through the crowd. I saw reporters from the New York Times, every major North Carolina Paper, and at least one from a network out of India.

I can only imagine most were there to monitor Trump’s crowd, and they were out in force.

While there, my main concern, as it has been, was seeing our governor successful, so that he could carry on the amazing work he has done with the Tar Heel state.

The great news for North Carolina was that we kept the majority in the state House and Senate. We kept our excellent Lt. Governor Dan Forest, who has been such a solid back-up man to Governor McCrory.

Richard Burr beat back the challenge of Deborah Ross, and save for a few disappointments in lower level races, everything looked as it should.

When the numbers for the gubernatorial race first came in, McCrory lagged behind Cooper by 9%.

I was horrified.

Then he was behind by 5% of the vote. Horrified, but less so.

Then it was less than a single percent, and I began to think that maybe this ship could right itself and the night wouldn’t be ruined, after all.

When McCrory finally pulled ahead by several percentage points, with over 90% of the precincts in, I started to actually enjoy myself, in spite of the insane Trumpkins all around.

McCrory was leading with over 50,000 votes and 97% of the precincts in. It seemed like a squeaker, but still a lock.

It was not to be so smooth, however.

People around me started murmuring that something wasn’t right. There had been a sudden change. McCrory was down and it was over.

It was well past midnight before McCrory and his wife took the stage to Tom Petty’s “I Won’t Back Down.”

With great poise, he congratulated Trump, and the whole cast of North Carolina Republicans who had won reelection.

Then he explained why he’d been so late taking the stage.

Apparently, within the last 40 minutes before calling the election for Cooper, a mysterious stash of 90,000 ballots emerged in the liberal stronghold of Durham, that they’d “forgotten” to count, so within that period, they quickly counted and it erased McCrory’s lead and put Cooper ahead by 3,000 votes.

There were also some precincts that hadn’t turned in their ballots.

McCrory vowed to use the process afforded candidates when a vote is so close, and the circumstances so suspect.

The process involves counting provisional ballots, as well as recanvassing every county in the state.

By November 18th, the process should be complete and we should have a final word on this very important election.

I had said from the beginning that McCrory is the standard bearer for sound governance in the nation, at this time. If he couldn’t win, there is no place for conservative leadership in the nation.

He was made enemy #1 by liberals and their fringe leftist yard dogs.

Am I bitter?

I am, but more than that, I’m in deep mourning for my state, and overall, a nation that has turned its back on sound, sane, leadership and conservative principles.

Through it all, Pat McCrory remains a principled and gracious leader. I am proud of the work he has done and I will support him to the very end.

McCrory explains what's next in close gubernatorial election https://t.co/Nx8Ixpwnkf via @WRAL — Susan_Wright (@SweetieWalker) November 9, 2016