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Little election drama in GOP-heavy Fayette

By J. FRANK LYNCH
jflynch@theCitizenNews.com

At the end of the day on Tuesday, Nov. 2, 2004, an election day of historic proportions that promised the potential for nail-biting drama, Fayette County went with the Republicans.

This was no surprise to anyone who knows anything about Fayette County politics, most especially Lane Watts, chairman of the Fayette County Republican Party.

At the seemingly early hour of 9:30 p.m. Tuesday, Watts made a couple of calls on his cell phone to report results and then went home, along with dozens of elections office workers and hundreds of volunteers, their task done.

Nationwide, Georgia was the first state to be called for President Bush in the race for the White House, declared at 7:01 p.m.

And Fayette County could have been the first county declared in Georgia.

Of Fayette’s 36 precincts, 34 went for President Bush, in most cases by wide margins. Only two precincts with large numbers of minority voters — Kenwood and Europe — went with Kerry.

In Fayette County, Bush received 37,322 votes, or 70.9 percent, to Democrat John Kerry’s 14,862 votes, or 28.7 percent.

And so it went for Republicans on down the ballot. None of the candidates running for local Fayette County offices had a Democrat challenger.

And even those Democrats running for state offices who ended up winning their races lost in Fayette County, where the Republican candidates carried the day.

State Rep. Virgil Fludd, who lives in Tyrone, was reelected to his second two-year term in the Legislature, even though Fayette County voters overwhelmingly went with his Republican challenger, Sam Ring.

In Fayette, Ring got 71 percent of the vote to Fludd’s 28.97 percent, but when precincts in Fludd’s District 66 in South Fulton County were counted, Fludd was reelected with 66 percent of the vote.

Similarly, Republican Emory Wilkerson faired well in Fayette, drawing 62.71 percent of the vote for the State House 74 seat. But voters in the Clayton County portion of the district backed his Democratic challenger, incumbent Roberta Abdul-Salaam who was returned to office with 60 percent of the vote total.

And in the race for State Senate District 34, Democrat Valencia Seay was returned to office with 69 percent of the vote. Her GOP opponent, Edith Marie Mullin, won Fayette County with 64 percent.

Republican winners who won solidly in Fayette County included Johnny Isakson in the race for U.S. Senate from Georgia (70.67 percent); Robert Baker for Public Service Commission (70.16 percent); and Lynn Westmoreland for U.S. Congress in Georgia’s 8th District (77.66 percent).

In the nonpartisan race for the Georgia Court of Appeals, Fayette went with Howard Mead, with 40.09 percent.

The only real drama that played out locally Tuesday night was in the vote to approve or disapprove a $116 million SPLOST initiative to fund Fayette County road construction. Voters narrowly approved the measure, 51 percent to 49 percent or about 1,000 votes.

They were more sure of the Board of Education’s $65 million bond referendum, which was expected, approving the plan to build a new middle school and make a host of improvements and additions by 68.42 percent.

And on the question of adding an amendment to Georgia’s constitution to declare weddings a union between man and woman, more often referred to as the “gay marriage ban,” Fayette voters mirrored the vote statewide, supporting the amendment by 78.36 percent.

Though it was a mere formality, voters on Tuesday also elected persons to fill 13 local positions in races decided in the July primary that included sheriff, district attorney, tax commissioner, three County Commission seats and three Board of Education seats.

See next Wednesday’s Citizen for precinct-by-precinct breakdowns on the key races.