Brian Strickland, Geoffrey Cauble Win Seats Without Runoff

Yes, it does seem like special elections are quite frequent these days.  In today’s balloting, voters choose to fill the seats left vacant by the resignation of Senator Rick Jeffares, who is running for Lt. Governor, and State Representative Brian Strickland, who is running for Jeffares open seat.

Results can be found at the Secretary of State’s office site, here.

With 100% of precincts reporting, unofficial results show Republican Geoffrey Cauble has avoided a runoff in a 4 person field of two Republicans, two Democrats.  That’s no small task for the political newcomer in a district that many feel is competitive for both parties.

With 96% of precincts reporting as of 9:00pm, it also appears that Brian Strickland will safely avoid a runoff in a 4 person field of three Republicans, one Democrat, with 62% of the vote.

Democrats made media hay over a few recent special election pickups.  At least with HD 111, this is one that they wanted and thought they could have, but didn’t get.  When folks look back at this race, they’ll see that the GOP and interested parties didn’t sit by and wait for the runoff to end to pick candidates and support them.  And because of that, they get two great elected officials and avoid the time and expense of bonus election activities.