Clinton, Kentucky voters favor Comer, Gray, Paul,Clinton in primary voting

Posted May 25, 2016 at 1:58 pm

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Despite ballots that were extremely thin in numbers and weather that for much of the day was unfavorable, Clinton County voters from both parties turned out in surprising numbers last Tuesday to cast votes in primary elections.

Republicans in Clinton County voted in only two primary election races last Tuesday, while Democrats casts votes in only three races.

Still, a surprising 25 percent of voters eligible to vote in primary elections here took the time to cast their choices for the handful of candidates involved in the five total races being decided.

With a total of 7,454 registered voters in Clinton County between the two parties, 1,893 voters either found their way to their respective voting locations last Tuesday, or cast ballots using the walk-in machine that was set up in County Clerk Shelia Booher’s office, or voted by using paper absentee ballots.

That number compared with 27 percent of local voters who voted in the last general election in November, 2015.

Republican voters found only two races on their ballots Tuesday, where they selected a candidate for this falls general elections for U.S. Senator and U.S. Representative.

Republicans had already selected a nominee for the presidential general election, picking Donald Trump during a caucus vote that was held in March.

In the two races that did appear on the ballots Tuesday, Republican voters in Clinton County and across Kentucky selected incumbent Rand Paul as their candidate of choice.

Locally, Paul received 1,192 votes from Republicans in a landslide nod over two challengers, James R. Gould who finished with 161 votes here and Stephen Slaughter with 69 votes.

Paul also was the landslide victor across Kentucky, picking up the party’s nod for nomination with nearly 85 percent of the vote, receiving 169,180 votes to 16,622 for Gould and 13,728 for Slaughter.

Paul will be facing Jim Gray this fall in the November General election.

Gray, who is the current Lexington Mayor, earned the Democrat nomination for the U.S. Senator seat by beating six other candidates in Tuesday’s primary race.

Gray was also the front runner in Clinton County Democrat voting with 144 votes locally and 280,613 votes statewide.

Republican voters in Clinton County joined voters across the 1st Congressional District in selecting a candidate to run this fall for that district’s U.S. House of Representative’s seat.

Currently held by long-time Representative Ed Whitfield of Hopkinsville, the race became an open field when he announced earlier that he would be retiring at the end of his current term.

Clinton County and voters across the district gave their party’s nod to former Kentucky Agriculture Commissioner James R. Comer, a Tompkinsville resident

Comer has made several visits to Albany and Clinton County both during his recent campaign as well as during his tenure as Kentucky Commissioner of Agriculture.

Comer picked up the nod easily over three other candidates. In Clinton County, he was the candidate with the most votes Tuesday, picking up 1,485 votes while Mike Pape received 63, Jason Batts had 58 and Miles Caughey, Jr. had 12 votes.

Across the 1st Congressional District, Comer received 60 percent of the votes, earning 24,242 votes to earn the nomination. Pape, his closest challenger in the election, picked up 9,357 votes across the district.

Comer will face Democrat Sam Gaskins in the November election. Gaskins ran unopposed Tuesday in the Democrat primary, although on the ballot he appeared to have an opponent, Tom Osborne, who had earlier withdrawn from the race but did so too late to keep his name from appearing on the ballot.

In what turned out to be the most interesting race on the Democratic side of Tuesday’s voting, the race for that party’s nomination for President of the United States was a neck and neck affair in Kentucky, with Hilary Clinton barely finishing out in front of Bernie Sanders.

Across Kentucky, Clinton squeaked out a win over Sanders by less than 2,000 votes, picking up 212,550 votes compared to Sanders’ 210,626 votes.

Clinton County voters favored Clinton as their choice by a heavier percentage, with local Democrats giving Clinton 151 votes while Sanders earned 93 votes locally.

Diane Elmore and County Clerk Shelia Booher read precinct results last Tuesday during the May Primary election.