Incumbent Polk County Commissioners Ray Gasperson (D) and Keith Holbert (R) were high vote-getters in their parties in the Tuesday, May 6 primary with Bill Ingham (D), Shane Bradley (R), Ted Owens (R) and Lee Mink (D) also winning bids, according to unofficial results from the Polk County Board of Elections Office Tuesday night.
Kenneth Brady (D) and Jake Johnson (R) did not win a bid for a county commissioner seat.
The totals do not include curbside or mail-in votes, but should not change the final results. Gasperson had the most votes with 844, followed by Ingham with 815, Holbert with 761, Bradley with 714, Owens with 706 and Mink with 693, according to unofficial results.
Johnson had 619 votes and Brady had 394 votes.
The six candidates will be running for three open commissioner seats in the Nov. 4 regular election. The seats of Gasperson, Holbert and Owens are up this year.
In other races, Polk County voters favored Greg Brannon in the U.S. Senate Republican bid with 427 Polk County votes, followed by Thom Tillis, who recevied 365; Mark Harris, who received 130; Ted Alexander, who received 73; Heather Grant, who received 66; Jim Snyder, who received 28; Alex Lee Bradshaw, who received 16 and Edward Kryn, who received six votes in Polk County.
The U.S. House District 10 Republican Congressional bid in Polk County favored incumbent Patrick McHenry with 697 votes over Richard Lynch with 370 votes.
Polk republican ticket voters chose incumbent N.C. State Senate District 47 Ralph Hise with 778 votes over Michael Lavender with 276 votes, according to unofficial results.
Polk democratic ticket voters chose incumbent U.S. Senator Kay Hagan with 857 votes over Will Stewart with 63 votes and Ernest T. Reeves with 43 votes.
The libertarian ticket included  the bid for U.S. Senator, with Polk County voters choosing  Sean Haugh with five votes over Tim D’Anunzio with four votes.
Polk voters also chose incumbent Robin Hudson with 889 votes over Jeanette Doran with 609 votes and Eric Levinson with 454 votes in the non-partisan bid for Supreme Court Associate Justice.
The Polk totals for the state races do not include totals throughout the state.
The Nov. 4 election will see the race for county commissioner along with a race for the sheriff and three races for Polk County School Board seats.
Polk County Sheriff Donald Hill (D) is being challenged this year by Pat Staggs (R). There are four seats up for re-election on the school board, including the Coopers Gap seat, the Columbus seat, the Green Creek seat and one Tryon seat. Incumbent Geoffrey Tennant is being challenged by T. Paul Beiler for the Columbus Township seat; incumbent Sherry Page is being challenged by Jeff Weaver for the Green Creek Township seat and Patrick D. Overholt and Jim Patterson are running for the Tryon Township seat, currently held by James Cowan. Incumbent Judy Jackson is running unopposed for the Coopers Gap Township.
Polk County Clerk of Court Pam Hyder (D) is running unopposed.
For more information on this year’s election call the Polk County Board of Election’s office at 828-894-8181 or go to the board of election’s website at www.polknc.org.