I’m sad to report that Mike Nifong, the district attorney who turned Durham into a media circus, has been elected to a full term in office:

District Attorney Mike Nifong kept his job as the county’s top prosecutor in a heated election that featured Nifong’s handling of the Duke lacrosse rape investigation as its central issue.

Nifong received 45.17 percent of the vote, enough to avoid a runoff. He beat former prosecutor Freda Black, who had 41.53 percent and lawyer Keith Bishop, who earned 13.3 percent.

Talk about lucky: Nifong had a three-way primary and the opposition to him never fully coalesced around one candidate.