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Incumbents Eubanks, Holder and Barrow win big. Tingle claims Dist. 5 BOS post. Burch solidifies House Dist. 105 win.

From Staff Reports

After months of campaigning and pushing residents to get engaged in the process roughly 43 percent of Greene County’s registered voters turned out Tuesday to vote in the General Election.

With the top political posts in the county and state on the ballot, 3,490 voters went to their polling places on Tuesday or voted by absentee ballot. And, in the end, while there will be several new faces in top positions, the incumbents that survived the primaries fared well in the General Election.

In the race to replace longtime county sheriff Stanley McLeod, who is retiring, Constable Ryan E. Walley handily defeated independent candidate and longtime police officer Michael Crawford. According to unofficial results, Walley earned 2,726 votes (81 percent) of the Tuesday vote.

Incumbent Chancery Clerk Michelle ‘Shelley’ Dobbins Eubanks retained her post by a sizeable margin. Eubanks earned 2,547 votes (74 percent) compared to Democrat and former Greene County Board of Supervisors Purchasing Clerk Lavon Bolton Pringle, who tallied 898 votes.

Incumbent Tax Collector / Assessor Mark Holder won by a 2,879-to-579 vote margin over Democratic challenger Lula Janet Leverette, while incumbent Post 2 Justice Court Judge Shannon Busby defeated Democrat Rosilyn Renee’ Johnson.  Holder claimed 83.3 percent of the votes in his race, while Busby tallied 81.6 percent in the race for judge.

Three of the five county supervisor posts were decided on Tuesday. Incumbent Dist. 4 Supervisor John Wayne Barrow Sr., the longest-serving member of the current board, handily defeated Democrat Roy Mack Holloman Jr. in order to maintain his post. Barrow won re-election by a 543-to-77 vote margin over Holloman.

Democrat Fredrick Lenard ‘Pete’ Johnson edged Republican Kendall Deese for the right to represent the people of Dist. 2. Deese defeated incumbent Elton Clark in the Republican Primary, but lost to Johnson by a 373-to-331 margin on Tuesday.  The precinct totals from State Line and North Leakesville were close with each candidate taking one precinct. However, Johnson dominated among absentee voters to get the win.

Republican David M. Tingle won out over Democrat Howard G. Garrett Sr. in the race for the Dist. 5 seat on the county’s governing board. Tingle defeated incumbent Dist. 5 Supervisor Gary Fairley in the Republican Primary and took 79.6 percent of the vote over Garrett in the General Election.

Incumbent Dist. 1 Supervisor Dillon McInnis survived a challenge in the Republican Primary to win re-election, while Efird Eubanks defeated Dist. 3 incumbent Wayburn D. ‘Danny’ Smith in the primary and will assume the office in January.

Greene County resident Elliot Burch easily defeated Democrat Matthew Daves to win the Dist. 105 seat in the Mississippi House of Representatives. Burch, who defeated incumbent Dale Goodin in the Republican Primary, claimed 2,660 votes in Greene County on Tuesday, compared to 308 for Daves. Burch claimed over 70 percent of the votes in Perry County as well.

In the race for House Dist. 86, Incumbent Republican Shane Barnett was defeated in Greene County by Democrat Annita Bonner by a 244-to-228 margin, but took his Perry county precincts by a solid margin and then dominated in his home county of Wayne. In Perry County Barnett dominated claimed 697 votes compared to just 81 for Bonner, while in Wayne County he beat Bonner by a 4,799-to-2,695 margin.

At the statewide level, Republican Gov. Tate Reeves won a second term over challenger Brandon Presley in a race that was unusually competitive for this GOP stronghold. But Reeves held Presley off, holding a 52-to- 47 percent lead Wednesday morning. Third-party candidate Gwendolyn Gray, an independent, garnered about two percent.

The governor’s margin of victory, which stood at just under 39,000 votes with 95 percent of precincts reporting, is expected to shrink slightly as tens of thousands of votes remained uncounted in Hinds County.

The hard-fought contest was disrupted by a voting mess when polling places in the state’s largest county ran out of ballots and voters endured long lines in the key Democratic stronghold. One judge ordered all polls in the county to remain open an extra hour, until 8 p.m. CST. Another judge said four polling places in some suburbs of Jackson had to extend voting until 9 p.m.

Hinds County election commissioners — all Democrats — were said to have underestimated the turnout and failed to have enough ballots on hand. Long lines of frustrated voters were kept waiting for batches of ballots that arrived and then ran out again.

None of those issues seemed to matter in other contested down ballot races, where incumbent statewide office holders faired very well. Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, Secretary of State Michael Watson, Attorney General Lynn Fitch, State Auditor Shad White, State Treasurer David McCrae, Commissioner of Agriculture and Commerce Andy Gipson and State Insurance Commissioner, all Republicans, won by similar margins of roughly 60-to-40 percent over their challengers.

Republican Charles Busby easily defeated Independent Steven Brian Griffin in the race for the open Southern District seat on the Mississippi Transportation Commission. Busby also won handily in Greene County, claiming 2,812 votes to Griffin’s 459.

Election officials will meet to review affidavit ballots on Wednesday and again next week to certify results after the required timeframe for mailed absentee ballots to arrive and voters with contested ballots to provide documentation to validate their vote.