Matt Bevin of Louisville will remain the Republican nominee for governor of Kentucky after a recanvass of the GOP primary was conducted statewide last Thursday, May 28.

On election day, Bevin was the unofficial winner in the race by a razor-thin 83 votes statewide over current Commissioner of Agriculture James Comer of Tompkinsville.

Another extremely close race, also in the Republican primary, resulted between Ryan Quarles and Richard Heath. This prompted both Comer and Heath to request that Secretary of State Alison Lungergan-Grimes hold a recanvass of the Tuesday, May 19 primary election in those races.

After a recanvass of all the votes cast in all of the state’s 120 counties last Thursday, results didn’t change as both Bevin and Quarles still came out ahead of their opponents.

Bevin will now take on Democrat Jack Conway, the state’s current Attorney General, in the governor’s race in November.

The recanvass of votes in Clinton County, like all other counties in Kentucky, showed no change in vote totals at all from the numbers announced on election night, according to County Clerk Sheila Booher.

Bevin wound up winning the nomination by the same margin as on election day, a slim 83 votes, making it one of the closest statewide primary elections in Kentucky history.

The Republican primary saw a total of four candidates in the running, with both Bevin and Comer receiving 33 percent of the popular vote, while Hal Heiner received 27 percent and Will T. Scott seven percent of the vote statewide.

The race was close throughout the campaign, and on election night, results changed back and forth during the night, with Comer holding a slim lead with 99 percent of the vote totals in.

However, Bevin gained enough votes in remaining precincts in the end to come-from-behind to take the narrow win.

In Clinton County, Comer won hands down on election day, receiving 1,358 votes to Bevin’s 106 votes. Heiner received only 65 votes and Scott had 28 votes.

In the Commissioner of Agriculture race, Quarles, the eventual winner, also carried Clinton County with 765 votes, 266 more than Heath who received 499 votes.

The election results will become official once certified by the Secretary of State’s office.