The smoke is beginning to clear as the votes are counted and a clearer picture of the 2022 general election emerges.
At the local level, Blake McCormack appears to have won the Republican primary for the District 2 seat on the Morgan County Board of Commissioners. McCormack tallied more than twice as many votes as Republican candidate Keith Wilson, finishing with 458 votes to Wilson’s 218.
Incumbent Andy Ainslie, who had run unopposed in 2014 and 2018, chose not to run for reelection. He had come under fire for his role in the Rivian EV plant deal.
McCormack will face Democrat Bob Baldwin in the general election.
Donald Harris ran unopposed for the District 1 seat and faces no opposition in November.
Candidates in the Morgan County Board of Education races had no opposition in the primaries, but incumbent Republican Forest Pagett will face Democrat Claudia Crenshaw in the fall.
Andrew Ainslie III runs unopposed as a Republican for the District 4 seat.
In Greene County, incumbent Republican District 1 Commissioner Angela Deering will be opposed by Democrat Melanie Miller. No one qualified to run against District 3 incumbent Dee Lindsay.
Steve Kilgore, who currently occupies the District 1 seat on the Greene County Board of Education, will be challenged by Democrat Sheila Drake in November.
District 3 board member Clarence Hunt did not qualify for another term, leaving Democrat Regina Gainer as the lone candidate for the post.
At the state level, Morgan County’s representation in the state legislature was guaranteed to change because Rep. Dave Belton decided not to run again, and Sen. Burt Jones ran for the Lt. Governor’s post.
Morgan County moved from Senate District 25 to District 17 after reapportionment, and incumbent Republican Brian Strickland won his primary against challenger Brett Mauldin by tallying 72 percent of the votes cast. He will face Democrat Kacy D. Morgan in the general election.
Morgan also moved into District 114 in the House, which includes part of Newton County.
Republican Tim Fleming defeated Wendell D. McNeal of Madison in the primary and tallied nearly 56 percent of the vote. Fleming will face Democrat Malcolm Adams of Oxford in the fall.
Greene County is now in State Senate District 24 which includes Oglethorpe, Elbert, Hart, Wilkes and Lincoln counties as well as part of Columbia County. Lee Anderson of Grovetown was the only candidate to qualify for the post, according to the Georgia Secretary of State’s website.
Greene is now in District 124 for the House, which includes Oglethorpe and Taliaferro counties.
Incumbent Republican Trey Rhodes of Greensboro will be opposed by Democrat Kat Howkins this fall.
It’s difficult to gauge the impact of a Donald Trump endorsement and a 40-year-old Heisman trophy, but Greene County voters cast 3,164 votes in the Republican U.S. Senate primary, and 68 percent went to Herschel Walker.
Walker was also the favorite in Morgan County, receiving 2,821 of the 4,799 primary votes cast.
Barring an unforeseen development, Walker will face Democrat Rafael Warnock, who won his primary with 96 percent of the vote over Tamara Johnson-Shealey.
It appears that Mike Collins and Vernon Jones are headed for a runoff in the Republican District 10 U.S. House race. Eight candidates qualified for the seat, and Collins had received more than 25 percent of the vote and Jones more than 21 percent at press time.
Greene County voters gave Jones 26 percent of the vote and Collins a little more than 22 percent. Similar results were reported in Morgan County.
Tabitha Johnson-Greene was the clear favorite among Democrats with 42 percent of the vote, but she appears headed for a runoff with Jessica Allison Fore. Johnson-Greene was the favorite in Morgan and Greene counties, but Phyllis Hatcher tallied more votes in the Lake Country counties.
Former District 10 Representative Jody Hice polled well in Greene with nearly 62 percent of the vote and received more than half of the votes in Morgan for Secretary of State, but he appears to have been defeated by the Republican incumbent Brad Raffensperger. Bee Nguyen received 42 percent of the total votes in the Democratic Primary and may face a runoff with Dee Dawkins-Haigler.
Greene County voters preferred incumbent Republican Gov. Brian Kemp over challenger David Perdue by more than three to one despite Donald Trump’s endorsement of Perdue. Numbers in Morgan County were similar. Statewide Kemp received nearly 74 percent of the vote while Perdue tallied less than 22 percent. So, it appears Kemp will face Stacey Abrams again in the general election.
Burt Jones got 75 percent in Greene for Lt. Governor and was also the overwhelming favorite in Morgan, but his margin of victory is razor-thin statewide at this point. With a little more than 5 percent of the vote yet to be counted, he has tallied 50.10 percent of the vote
A runoff is likely between Democrats Charlie Bailey and Kwanza Hall in that race.