by Leah Justice

leah.justice@tryondailybulletin.com

Polk County voters turned out in high numbers yesterday for the primary election and chose six candidates to run for three open county commissioner seats.

For the Republican Party, Jake Johnson was high vote getter with Tommy Melton coming in second and Myron Yoder winning the third spot, according to unofficial election results from the Polk County Board of Elections. Republican candidates John Dennis Hill and Josh Denton lost the bid, according to unofficial results.

For the Democrats, Penny Padgett was high vote getter with Rhonda Lewis coming in second and Russell Mierop also securing a nomination, according to unofficial results. Kim Pack lost the bid.

Results were available around 9 p.m. Tuesday night with all seven of Polk’s precincts reporting. The unofficial totals do not include any absentee votes that may be returned to the county this week and 73 curbside votes that had not been tallied as of press time. The results for commissioner will likely not change once the remaining absentee and curbside votes are counted.

Johnson had the most votes with 1,993, with Melton receiving 1,723 votes and Yoder with 1,552 votes. Hill received 1,197 votes and Denton received 1,115 votes, according to unofficial results. Hill lost the bid by 355 votes and Denton lost the bid by 437 votes, according to Tuesday’s results.

Padgett had the most votes for the democrats with 1,536 with Lewis receiving 1,455 and Mierop receiving 1,170, according to unofficial results. Pack received 1,081, losing the bid by 89 votes, according to unofficial results Tuesday.

In the presidential election Polk County Democrats chose U.S. Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders with Hillary Clinton coming in second. Sanders had 1,118 votes compared to Clinton’s 1,074 votes in Polk. Martin J. O’Malley received 22 Polk votes, Roque Rocky De La Fuente received eight votes and no preference received 52 votes, according to unofficial results.

For the Republicans, Donald Trump received the most votes in Polk County with Ted Cruz coming in second and John R. Kasich coming in third. Trump received 1,609 votes in Polk County, Cruz received 1,122 votes in Polk County and Kaisch received 450 Polk votes, according to unofficial results. Other candidates received low votes in Polk County, including Marco Rubio who received 214 votes, Ben Carson received 33 votes, Rand Paul received 13 votes, Jeb Bush received nine votes, Mike Huckabee received eight votes, Carly Fiorina received six votes and Chris Christie received two Polk County votes, according to unofficial results.

Polk County voters also voted more in favor of the Connect NC Public Improvement Bond. There were 3,344 votes for the bond and 2,145 votes against the bond, according to unofficial results.

Other Polk County choices included Pat McCrory for the republican bid for North Carolina Governor by a large margin over Charles Kenneth Moss. McCrory received 2,425 votes in Polk County, with Moss receiving 369 Polk votes and C. Robert Brawley receiving 318 votes.

For the North Carolina democratic governor bid, Polk County voters chose Roy Cooper over Ken Spaulding. Cooper received 1,431 Polk votes compared to Spaulding’s 531 Polk votes.

An official canvassing of votes will be done later to make the results official by the Polk County Board of Elections.

Look for more results including turnout and a breakdown by precinct for the Polk commissioner races in the Bulletin later this week.