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RALEIGH (AP) - Democratic Attorney General Roy Cooper secured a third four-year term on Tuesday night by defeating Republican Bob Crumley to continue as North Carolina's top law-enforcement officer.

The Associated Press called the race for Cooper based on an analysis of voter interviews, conducted for the AP by Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International.

Cooper, 51, is a former state legislator from Rocky Mount who ran for re-election instead of mounting a bid for governor as had his two predecessors because he said he had "so many issues to tackle." He focused his campaign largely on his record during the past eight years.

Crumley, also 51, has been involved in Republican campaigns since the 1970s, and he launched an unsuccessful bid for the state Senate in 2002.

"It's been a rough night to be a Republican in North Carolina," Crumley said. "This is a decidedly Democratic year, and it's just tough running against an incumbent."

Cooper pointed to his record during the past eight years, saying he fought meth labs, sued to protect North Carolina from out-of-state polluters and worked to keep the state's children safe from Internet predators.

But his most publicized act during his latest term came in April 2007, when he tossed out the remaining charges against three Duke University lacrosse players falsely accused of rape. In declaring them innocent, he said at the time that no DNA supported the woman's story.

Footage from that news conference was used in Cooper's first campaign ad, which went on to say the attorney general helped modernize the state's crime lab and added dozens of DNA experts.

Crumley has criticized Cooper for opening a new lab in Greensboro that doesn't have the equipment to perform DNA testing, and said officials have told him it still takes several months for analysis of crime lab evidence to be returned to law enforcement.

Crumley's law firm, Crumley and Associates, has 13 offices in North and South Carolina and focuses on auto accidents, Social Security and workers' compensation cases.