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Westmoreland wins, looks to November

By JOHN THOMPSON
jthompson@TheCitizenNews.com

When asked Wednesday to what he could attribute Tuesday’s victory, a jubilant Lynn Westmoreland did not hesitate to answer.

“Cal Beverly’s endorsement of Dylan Glenn,” he said.

The state representative easily defeated Glenn in Tuesday’s runoff election for the republican slot for the Eighth Congressional District seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. Westmoreland received 34,245 votes to Glenn’s 27,476.

Westmoreland’s large margin of victory was due to big vote totals in Fayette and Coweta counties. Westmoreland beat Glenn in Coweta by a 6,063 to 3,416 total. In Fayette, Westmoreland tallied 7,632 votes to Glenn’s 4,863.

“I think our grassroots efforts really paid off. Dylan was nothing but a Washington insider. He’s only lived here 10 months,” he said.

Westmoreland said he also had the support of several sheriffs, including Coweta County’s Mike Yeager and Fayette’s Randall Johnson, that helped put him over the top.

“The people in this district trust their sheriffs and respect their opinions,” he said.

Now that Westmoreland has won the Republican slot, he’ll face Democrat Silvia Delamar in November.

“I really don’t know anything about her. But we plan to run the same type of campaign and focus our efforts on the accomplishments we’ve done in the General Assembly,” he said.

In other election results, Coweta voters completed a clean sweep of voting out incumbent Board of Education members. Frank Farmer defeated incumbent Allan Payton by a 7,950 to 3,107 margin.

In one of the closest races, Paul Poole defeated Ricky Ragan for the County Commission District 1 position. Polle tallied 1,322 votes to Ragan’s 1,251.

Ragan was the leading vote getter in the July 20 primary, but could not hold his margin in Tuesday’s runoff. Coweta County information officer Tom Corker said the margin was just big enough not to generated an automatic recount.

In Fayette County, a familiar face was returned to the General Assembly. Dan Lakly, who served in the General Assembly and the Fayette County Commission, defeated Alison Chambers in the State House District 72 race. Lakly received 3,660 votes for nearly 59 percent of the vote, while Chambers got 2,544 and 41 percent.

In the State House District 74 race, Roberta Abdul Salaam defeated Gorge Jeburk by a 474-235 vote margin in Fayette. The district includes part of Clayton County and the district-wide vote totals were 1,343 for Abdul-Salaam and 1.117 for Jeburk.

In the race for the State Senate District 16 post, political newcomer Ronnie Chance defeated Bill Bonner by a 4,449-3,573 margin.