Months of bruising primary campaign activity came to a close last night as voters went to the polls to decide the winners of several key primary contests in Tennessee as well as many local contests of importance as well.
For the Tennessee State Senate GOP primary in District 16, voters chose Janice Bowling, with 8,127 votes. On the Democratic side, Jim Lewis takes the vote in a narrow margin against opponent Steve Roller.
For the State House District 92 GOP primary, Bill Spivey wins with 57% of the vote, and on the Democratic side, it was Vicki Cain who took the lead over her opponents.
For the US Senate, GOP candidate and incumbent Bob Corker maintains his nomination with 85% voting in favor of him, with democrats choosing Mark Clayton.
US House District 4 GOP candidate and incumbent Scott DesJarlais takes 77% of the vote, the democratic primary was uncontested with Eric Stewart taking that nomination. DesJarlais and Stewart will now face each other in the general election in November.
One of the most highly contested seats in the state was that of the US House District 3 GOP nomination, which has seen its’ share of mud-slinging through the campaign season.
Incumbent Chuck Fleischmann took 39% of the votes over opponents Scottie Mayfield and Weston Wamp, son of former Tennessee Congressman Zach Wamp.
Locally two races that were closely watched were that of Marion County Mayor and Road Superintendent.
Marion voters chose Democrat John Graham to continue serving as County Mayor, with 2,222 votes. Graham faced Republican candidate Gary Ellis. Graham was appointed to the position of County Mayor after the passing of Mayor David Kirk in December of 2010. Graham will now serve out the remaining two years of that original term.
Graham, of course, was previously the road superintendent for the county. When he vacated that seat for the County Mayor’s chair, Neil Webb was appointed to fill that position in the interim. In the contest last night, Webb faced James Hawk, former road superintendent for Signal Mountain. Voters chose to keep Neil Webb as road superintendent, with 2,000 votes over Hawks fair-showing of 1,691 votes.
For Marion County Assessor of Property, longtime incumbent Judy Brewer remains in that position with just over 3,000 votes in her favor.
Jeff Harmon remains as Public Defender with just over 2,600 votes.
Marion County School Board Members Julie Bennett in District 1, and Terry Case in District 2 remain in their positions, while the one contested seat was for the Richard Hardy Special School District. Bill Stuart wins that contest with 49 votes, over Mark Garner’s fair showing of 33 votes.
Several County Constable seats were also on the ballot.
In the 2nd District, Harvey Allison won with 638 votes. Jeff Stephens won in the 2nd District over opponent John Deal. Chip Wampler wins in the 3rd District with 521 votes over Dale King’s 262. Marion Richardson wins in the 4th District, and Darryl Powell takes District 5.
Voters also chose to retain Judges Bivins and Paige.
