Hunter wins School Board race; Kemp elected governor
US Senate election likely headed to runoff

By Shawn Jarrard

The Nov. 8 General Election may be over, but not all races had been called as of press time, and once again, it looks like a Georgia runoff for U.S. Senate will end up deciding the balance of Congress.

For the only contested county-level race, Union County voters overwhelmingly chose Republican Incumbent Tony Hunter over Democratic challenger Michelle Maloney for Union County Board of Education District 2.

Hunter earned roughly 83% of the vote and will swear into his fourth term in January.

“I really do appreciate the confidence that the public entrusts me with, because it could be anybody in this position, and hopefully I won’t let them down,” Hunter said. “Collectively, we have an awesome board, and we all work for the betterment of the community and the great education that our kids are getting – they all have a heart for it.”

The re-elected School Board member said he looks forward to continuing the school system’s mission of remaining “Union United” and providing “Success For ALL,” with a goal of making Union County not just No. 1 in the state, but in the United States.

“We have the greatest staff and the greatest school system around,” he said, noting that he is grateful to be surrounded by similarly high-performing school systems in the North Georgia Mountains.

Republicans Jason McCarter and Incumbent Patrick White ran unopposed in their School Board districts, and they will join Hunter in being sworn in come January.

This was an above-average year of voting for a midterm election, with the state reporting about 71% of the Union County electorate having cast ballots in the 2022 General Election compared with the 67% turnout in 2018.

Of course, these numbers pale in comparison to recent presidential election year turnouts, with a whopping 85% of active Union County voters showing up in 2016 and 81% in 2020.

Midterm turnout was up across the state as well, bolstered by the many opportunities to vote in Georgia, from access to no-excuse absentee ballots to 17 days of early voting.

“Georgia has had record Early Voting turnout since the first day of Early Voting this year, surging to nearly twice the number on the first day of Early Voting in 2018,” the Secretary of State’s Office said Saturday.

Continuing, “Early Voting in this election far exceeded the total from 2018, which saw 1.8 million voters cast their ballots and was within striking distance of the 2.6 million who cast their ballot early in 2020.”

At press time, Republicans were winning big at the top of the state ticket, including incumbent Gov. Brian Kemp, who beat repeat challenger Democrat Stacey Abrams by a comfortable margin. Abrams called Kemp Election Night to concede the race.

In deep-red Union County, Kemp won 85% of the vote to Abrams’ 14%, with 12,118 voters opting to keep the current governor.

But with 96.86% of the statewide vote counted as of early Wednesday morning, it appeared that neither Democratic Incumbent Raphael Warnock nor his main challenger, Republican Herschel Walker, had enough votes to win the contested U.S. Senate seat outright.

There will likely be a runoff in this race, which, if called, will take place Tuesday, Dec. 6. The official timetable for runoff early voting was unknown at press time.

However, given that the June runoff for the May 24 General Primary featured a week of early voting, it’s probable that the same would be true for a Dec. 6 election. The North Georgia News will report runoff details – if applicable – as soon as they are available.

In Union County, Walker won 79% of the vote, while Warnock earned about 18.5%.

For the other federal race that appeared on the ballot, for U.S. House of Representatives District 9, Republican Incumbent Andrew Clyde handily defeated Democrat Michael “Mike” Ford with 72% of the vote districtwide.

Continuing at the state level, for State House of Representatives District 8, Republican Incumbent Stan Gunter enjoyed a wide margin of victory over Democrat June Krise, winning the district with 84% of the vote. Union County supported Gunter by the same margin.

The race for Secretary of State was called by press time for Republican Incumbent Brad Raffensperger over Democrat Bee Nguyen and Libertarian Ted Metz.

For Lt. Governor, Republican Burt Jones had 51.5% of the vote with less than 4% of precincts remaining to be counted – a clear advantage over Democrat Charlie Bailey.

Likewise, for Attorney General, Commissioner of Agriculture, Commissioner of Insurance, State School Superintendent and Commissioner of Labor, the Republican candidates were leading with greater than 50% of the vote at press time.

District 51 State Sen. Steve Gooch and Enotah Judicial Circuit District Attorney Jeff Langley, both Republican incumbents, ran unopposed in the Nov. 8 election.

Incumbent Jennifer Logan ran unopposed for Blue Ridge Mountain Soil and Water Conservation District Supervisor in Union County.

Also appearing on the ballot were two proposed amendments to the Georgia Constitution.

The first passed by a wide margin, enabling the suspension of pay for elected state officers and Georgia General Assembly members if such individuals become “suspended from office following indictment for a felony.”

Proposed Constitutional Amendment 2 also passed, authorizing local governments and school boards to provide temporary tax relief to local properties that are “severely damaged or destroyed as a result of a disaster and located within a nationally declared disaster area.”

Additionally, voters approved two statewide referendums to authorize acts passed recently by the Georgia General Assembly. The first act will grant certain statewide ad valorem tax exemptions benefiting the timber industry, while the second act will expand ad valorem tax exemptions for family-owned farms.

Local results will not become official until sometime Friday, and the Union County Board of Elections will host a public hand count audit for the governor and senate races on Monday, Nov. 14, starting at 8 a.m. at the Union County Board of Elections Office on Hunt-Martin Street.

Pick up a copy of the Nov. 16 newspaper for more election-related coverage.