NC Governor-elect Pat McCrory (R) won the election with almost 55 percent / 500+k votes to incumbent Lieutenant Governor Walter H. Dalton (D). It is apparent from this story that the NC lieutenant governor race is a separate race from the governor’s race, a logic that I think dates back to creating weak governorships after the Civil War Reconstruction. What is strange (from this distance) is why so many voters split their ballots or else failed to vote in the lower-bracket LG race. Puzzling.
VA has the same thing. Each state office is a separate election, for Gov/Lt Gov/AG. In the last (’09) election, IIRC, the R AG candidate got more votes than the R Gov or Lt Gov candidates, tho all won. (The AG is now challenging the Lt Gov to run for Gov next year, and will likely get the nomination even tho he may not win the general election, depending on the D candidate(s)).