Millwood, Brannon on run-off ballot
Published 3:48 pm Thursday, June 10, 2010
Tuesdays primary election settled little for November, instead setting up runoffs among GOP candidates for the areas and South Carolinas top leadership positions.
Meanwhile, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Vincent Sheheen and U.S. Senate candidate Alvin Greene, who will face incumbent Jim DeMint, won their way to Novembers general election on a day that featured about 25 percent of registered voters casting their ballots.
The runoff election is scheduled for June 22.
Locally, S.C. House District 38 will be among the Republican run-off elections set for June 22. Incumbent Joey Millwood will face off against challenger Doug Brannon. John Moore was eliminated from the race.
Millwood, a former Tryon Daily Bulletin employee, received 1,769 votes, while Brannon garnered 1,714 to force the runoff. Moore followed with 1,267 votes.
Im proud to have received the most votes and to have carried eight out of 12 precincts, said Millwood. For the most part, it came out like we thought.
Brannon, who served as Landrums mayor from 1993-97, easily carried his three home precincts Landrum High School, Landrum United Methodist Church and Gramling Methodist.
Brannon said he expected a runoff all along.
When I got into this thing, I knew it was going to end up in a runoff, he said. So, I was pleased with the way things went and very thankful for the people who got out to vote.”
Now, Brannon will go back to work in an effort to win over Moores voters.
John Moore is a friend of mine, so I plan to have several conversations with him over the next few days and see if Mr. Moore will endorse me, Brannon said.
Locally, incumbent Dale Culbreth faced down former state Rep. Joe Mahaffey to retain his seat on the Spartanburg County Council. Culbreth, who won with 55 percent of the vote, will now serve a second term on council.
The District 38 seat is among several GOP runoffs set for later this month.
DeMint avoided that fate with a landslide U.S. Senatorial victory over challenger Susan Gaddy. DeMint received 83 percent of the vote statewide.
The GOP gubernatorial runoff will be contested between Nikki Hailey and Gresham Barrett. Hailey came close to taking the four-way race straight to November with 48 percent of the vote. Had she pushed that mark over 50 percent, she would have won the GOPs nomination over Barrett (22 percent), Henry McMaster (17 percent) and Andre Bauer (12 percent).
With 34 percent of the vote, Ken Ard will face Bill Connor (24 percent) for the Republican nomination for Lt. Governor.
The hotly contested race for the Fourth Congressional District between incumbent Bob Inglis and solicitor Trey Gowdy will go to a runoff as well. Gowdy earned 40 percent of the ballots, while Inglis finished with 27 percent. Jim Lee, David Thomas and Christina Jeffrey were eliminated from the race.
Millwood said the number of races being contested in the upcoming runoff election should help voter turnout.
Weve got a governors race and a congressional race, so we wont be the only ones pushing for a turnout, so thatll help tremendously, but for the next two weeks, were going to be working crazy hard.