In an example of the phrase “every vote counts,” Putnam County’s District 2 county commission race was carried by Democrat challenger Richard Garrett by a margin of 1,087 to 1,069 for incumbent Republican commissioner Daniel Brown.
The renewal of the county’s SPLOST and the bond measure to borrow against those funds failed with 6,461 votes against compared to 5,700 votes in support.
In Putnam County’s District 1, former commissioner Gary McElhenney’s son Tom will take his seat with a vote of 1,766 compared to 883 for challenger Jerry Swafford. The race was a special election after Gary McElhenney’s passing after qualifying for re-election.
U.S. Rep. Mike Collins (R) won re-election by a margin of 63% to 37% over challenger Lexy Doherty (D). Putnam County’s results were similar, with 9,365 votes for Collins to 3,222 for Doherty.
State Rep. Trey Rhodes (R) also won re-election with 66% of the vote in District 124. In Putnam, Rhodes won by a hefty margin of 5,187 to 1,673 for challenger Melanie Miller (D).
State. Rep. Dale Washburn (R) also cruised to another term by 74% of the vote across District 144. In Putnam, he tallied 4,073 votes to 1,554 for Democratic challenger Anita Hyland.
While there was bad news for the next SPLOST, there appeared to be marginally more faith in the school system as the education SPLOST was approved by a margin of 6,196 to 6,017.
Check next week’s print edition for more analysis of the 2024 general election.