It was a clean sweep for local incumbents Tuesday night as every seat was retained by current Lumpkin County representatives once the votes were counted in the General Primary and Non-Partisan General Election, according to results reported by the Lumpkin County Election and Registration Office.
In the race for the Lumpkin County School Board District 2 seat, incumbent Craig Poore defeated challenger Jeramy Nye by a tally of 4,267 votes to 1,511.
The result was similar for Lumpkin County Board of Commissioners incumbent Jeff Moran as he topped challenger R.L. “Wade” Niles for the District 4 Republican nomination by a count of 4,195 to 1,074.
On the state legislative level, incumbent Will Wade clinched the District 9 nomination over Tyler Tolin by a local vote of 4,007 to 925. The same results were seen throughout the district as Wade received 82 percent of the total vote.
Meanwhile, Governor Brian Kemp held on to the Republican nomination, and Lumpkin voters seemed to concur as 4,151 local votes were cast for the incumbent. Former Senator David Perdue received the second most local votes with a tally of 1,318.
Democratic nominee Stacey Abrams ran unopposed and received a total of 575 local votes.
These results reflected the state wide trend as Kemp captured the renomination without the need for a runoff.
At 8:30 p.m., with only about 9% of the vote counted, Kemp had amassed 72.7% of the statewide vote to just 22.6% for Perdue.
Educator Kandiss Taylor, conservative activist Catherine Davis and retired software engineer Tom Williams trailed far behind in the low single digits.
Perdue took the stage at a Sheraton Hotel in suburban Smyrna at about the same time, pledging to support Kemp in the November election despite the bitter campaign he waged against the incumbent.
"I just called the governor and congratulated him," Perdue told supporters. "I want you to do the same thing."
Former University of Georgia football champion Herschel Walker added another victory to his win column Tuesday when he beat five other candidates for the Republican nomination for a Georgia U.S. Senate seat.
Walker earned 69% of the vote in Republican primary, with about 26% of votes counted at 9:25 p.m. Walker will now face off against current U.S. Senator Raphael Warnock in November.
In Lumpkin the result was similar as Walker received 3,645 votes as Gary Black came in a distant second with 786 ballots cast in his name.
On a state level, Walker soundly defeated his five opponents in the Republican primary. Current Georgia Commissioner of Agriculture, Gary Black, was the next highest vote-getter with 14.3% of the vote.
Latham Saddler, an Atlanta banking executive and former Navy SEAL, received 7.6% of the vote.
Josh Clark, a former state representative from Flowery Branch, earned 3.7% of votes cast.
Kelvin King, a small business owner and Air Force veteran from Atlanta who is, like Walker and Warnock, African American, pulled 3.2% of the vote.
And retired Brig. Gen. Jonathan McColumn of Warner Robins finished with 2.2% of votes cast.
Warnock handily beat his sole Democratic primary opponent Tamara Johnson-Sealey with 97% of the vote.
The results of Warnock and Walker’s contest in November could determine which party controls the Senate.
State level reporting for this story was provided by Rebecca Grapevine and Dave Williams of Capitol Beat News Service.