By Stan Welch
After months and months of campaign ads and rallies and caravans, the national election ground to a halt Tuesday night in a dead heat, and with millions of votes uncounted. We still have no declared winner as President and Vice President of the United States, and may not know for several days. President Trump vows to take the case to the Supreme Court, while Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi stands ready to turn the decision over to the lower house of Congress.
But Congressional, state and local offices have been decided, and the results follow. Incumbent U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham, after a hard fought battle with a well financed opponent, pulled away to win almost seventy per cent of the vote in Anderson County. He received 66,385 votes in Anderson county, while Jaime Harrison received 27,955. Graham also prevailed across the state, and will serve another term in the Senate.
District Three Congressman Jeff Duncan also won re-election handily, receiving almost 74 per cent of the vote, to defeat Democrat Hosea Cleveland.
Mike Gambrell easily retained his District Four seat in the state Senate, garnering more than seventy one per cent of the vote, with 25,071 votes to 9982 for his opponent Jose Villa. In the state House of Representatives races, only Jay West and Jonathon Hill had opposition, while Craig Gagnon (D11),Anne Thayer (D9), Brian White, (D6),and West Cox (D10) were unopposed, although there were write-in votes in each of those races. Incumbent Jay West retained his seat easily, defeating Andrea Bejarano-Robinson with better than 76% of the vote. Jonathon Hill retained his seat over Jackie Todd, by a count of 14,075 votes to 3270 for Todd.
David Wagner was unopposed in the 10th Circuit Solicitor’s race, with 78,966 votes, or 98 per cent. Richard Shirley was re-elected Clerk of Court with 99% of the votes; Greg Shore was re-elected Coroner with that same percentage, as were county auditor Jacky Hunter and county treasurer Jason Phillips. None of the four faced opposition, though there were votes written in for each of the races.
The pursuit of County Council seats resulted in one change. John B. Wright won the District One seat vacated earlier this year by Craig Wooten, who surrendered the seat in his pursuit of the state Senate; a pursuit which was unsuccessful. Incumbents Ray Graham (D3), Brett Sanders (D4), Tommy Dunn (D5) Jimmy Davis (D6) and Cindy Wilson (D7) all ran unopposed, while (D2) veteran Gracie Floyd handily won re-election over David Standard, with 64% of the vote.
The race, if it could be called that for the Soil and Water Conservation Commission, had no declared candidates. There were, however, 10510 write-in votes. The names of those receiving those votes are not available at this time.
Anderson County School District One saw Mike Wilson and Brenda Ellison re-elected without opposition. Wilson received 17,307 votes; Ellison had 17,996. Moochie Merritt, incumbent, defeated John Neel 10,413 votes to 8,059.
Al Rentz garnered 889 votes for the Big Creek Water Conservation board. Eric McConnell won 5029 votes in the Brushy Creek Water Conservation board election. The second seat had no announced candidate, but write in votes were cast.
In the 3 & 20 Water Conservation board race, two of the three available seats were claimed by Mark Bishop and Phil Tripp, with write in votes also cast.
The two highest vote getters in the Piedmont Public Service Commission election were Rudy Rhodes with 281 and Charlene Spelts with 171. Andrigoula Karanikas finished third with 74 votes. Two seats were available in that race.
In the Williamston Municipal Election, Rockey Burgess won the mayor’s seat, defeating incumbent mayor Mack Durham by 120 votes, 724 to 604. Incumbent councilman Chris Alexander, running unopposed, received 1097 votes for his Ward 4 seat. Tabitha Austin received 1021 votes running unopposed for the Ward 3 seat.
