August 17, 2022 |
The stakes were high in several primary races here in Carbon County.
Voter turnout was high in Tuesday’s Republican Primary here, with a total of 3,993 ballots cast—up over 1,300 voters from the 2020 primary when 2,650 went to the polls. In the 2018 Primary Election, 2,710 ballots were cast.
In the U.S. House race, Hageman beat Cheney by 52 percentage points. Hageman collected 72 percent of the vote with 2,852 ballots to Cheney’s 819, of 20 percent.
Moving to the local contested races on the Republican ticket:
House District 47: Bob Davis narrowly defeated Clyde Johnson, 1,031 votes to 892.
Brittany Nyman won County Coroner with 2,284 votes to Dave Gier’s 1,169.
In the race for County Sheriff, Alex Bakken won with 40 percent of the votes. Bakken had 1,467 votes. Shawn Kelley came in second with 1,265. John Moore was third with 664.
The race for County Assessor was very close. Renee Snider won 50.78 percent of the vote to Courtney Ney’s 48.9 percent. The vote totals in the Assessor’s race were Snider with 1,815 ballots cast to Ney’s 1,748. The difference was a slim 67 votes.
Back up to the top, only 304 Democrat ballots were cast Tuesday. In the U.S. House race, Lynette Grey Bull won with 52 percent of the votes. In Democratic Primary for Governor here, Theresa Livingston came in on top with 60 percent of the vote.
Local Contested Races
In the mayoral races around the county the winners were:
Baggs: Ann Marie Wilson
Dixon: Melodie Seilaff
Elk Mountain: Morgan Irene
Encampment: Shannon Fagan over Greg Salisbury, 75 votes to 66.
Hanna: O.D. Briggs won the mayor race there with 74 votes, edging Jon Ostling with 68.
Medicine Bow: Sharon Biamon appears to have won there with 33 votes, although there were 38 total write-in votes.
Riverside: It’s unclear what happened in Riverside with just 20 write-in votes on this unofficial tally from the clerk’s office.
Saratoga: Chuck Davis won the mayoral race with 395 votes to D’Ron Campbell’s 241.
Sinclair: Cullen Meeks won with 65 votes over Phyllis McWhorter with 45.
In Rawlins, where city council elects the mayor, changes are coming with two long-time incumbents losing. In Ward 1, Bruce Seilaff defeated Debari Martinez. In Ward 2, Tonya Lewman defeated Linda Smith. Steve Sanger won the council race in Ward 3. Jaqueline Wells won the Rawlins at large primary.
Back up to the top of the ticket and zooming back out to the statewide level:
Governor Mark Gordon easily won his re-election race. Gordon took in nearly 62 percent of the vote statewide. Brent Bien, a retired Marine colonel running in his first race ever, had 29.5 percent. Rex Rammell had 5.6 percent.
Democrat Theresa Livingston beat Rex Wilde, earning nearly 70 percent of the vote with 30 percent reported.
In another Republican Primary race that drew attention, Chuck Gray of Casper won the nomination. Grey defeated State Senator Tara Nethercott and former geologist Mark Armostrong. The vote total around 12:30 a.m. this morning put Gray ahead of Nethercott by about 13,000 votes.
With no Democratic challenger in the General Election, Gray is poised to succeed current Secretary of State Ed Buchanan, who is leaving the office after being tapped by Gov. Mark Gordon to be a district court judge.
Curt Meier won the Republican Primary for State Treasurer over challenger Bill Gallop by a 57,000-vote margin.
In the primary for Superintendent of Public Instruction, Megan Degenfelder narrowly defeated Brian Schroeder, who was appointed by Governor Gordon last year, by less than 4,000 votes.
Interestingly, a candidate who withdrew from the school superintendent race and had endorsed Schroeder, drew 11,000 votes. Thomas Kelly withdrew form the race in August, a month after absentee voting had started.
Pictured above: File photo of Carbon County polling location. Photo by Cali O’Hare/Bigfoot 99.
