Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

By Carlton Fletcher & Alan Mauldin
[email protected]

WASHINGTON — It’s official. Donald Trump has been elected the 47th President of the United States. This will be Trump’s second time taking the nation’s highest office with his win over Vice President Kamala Harris after a contentious campaign. He previously defeated Hillary Clinton in the electoral college in the 2016 election.

The results were officially called shortly after 5:30 a.m. on Wednesday when news networks declared Trump winner of Wisconsin to make him president-elect and send him back to the White House. His electoral college vote total reached 276 with Harris at 217 and unable to catch him in the polls.

Georgia, which helped send Joe Biden to the presidency four years ago, helped Trump retain the White House by narrowly selecting the Republican over Harris.

With 90% of the Peach State vote counted, Trump had 51.6% of the vote to 47.7% for Harris.

Locally, in what Dougherty County Elections Supervisor Ginger Nickerson called the largest turnout since she’s been in office and what many are saying may be a record, 58.32% of Dougherty County’s 58,543 registered voters — more than 34,000 voters — cast early ballots and came to the polls on Election Day, most of them spurred by the presidential election that was called early Wednesday morning.

Incumbent Republican District 1 Dougherty County Commissioner Ed Newsome held off the challenge of Democrat Larry Harris to retain his seat. Newsome outpolled Harris 4,400 votes to 3,890.

In an even closer race for the District 1 Dougherty School Board seat, Democrat Carolyn Hand beat Republican David Maschke 4,275 votes to 3,983 to claim the seat that is being vacated by Robert Youngblood. Maschke was seeking a return to the board after a 12-year absence.

After casting his vote at the Greenbriar Church precinct at 3404 Gillionville Road, Garry Simmons had a short explanation of his vote for Kamala Harris: “Democracy.”

“That was the main reason,” he said. “I’ve seen what he’s (Trump) done. I know a second term would not be great.”

The presidential (race) was important, Simmons said, but there were other competitive races on his ballot with local and national ramifications, including the Dougherty County School Board District 1, County Commission District 1 and the District 2 U.S. House contests.

“The president was a priority, but it was everything,” he said. “I always have to come out and vote.”

Jackie Billot said that inflation was one of her primary motivations.

“Just the cost of everything is one of my main concerns,” she said. “I just don’t like all the hate involved. I’d like to know what they want to do instead of how much they dislike one another.”

Billot said she preferred Republicans in the presidential contest and in other races. She also would have liked to have seen more choices in local contests.

The Democratic candidate for sheriff, Dougherty County Sheriff’s Chief Deputy Terron Hayes, had the backing of current Sheriff Kevin Sproul, Billot said, but she did not know much about him. She said she also likes District Attorney Greg Edwards.

“I’d like more choices, not that they’re not good people,” she said. “The sheriff (Sproul) has been a good sheriff.”

At the Shiloh Baptist Church precinct on Whitney Avenue, Tynice Wade was with daughter Tyvonna Monroe, who was turning 2 months old, and the infant’s father, Devon Monroe, where the couple cast their ballots for Harris.

“I feel like she will make a big change in the world,” Wade said.

As of mid-morning on Tuesday, election workers at both locations said that voting was steady but not heavy so far. A lot of voters cast early ballots, which could explain why there were not more on election day.

“I was at the Civic Center (for early voting), and I saw people who vote here early voting,” Shiloh Poll Manager Jacquelyn Harrold said.

In the race for the U.S. House District 2 seat that has been held by Sanford Bishop for the past 32 years, Bishop easily outpolled Republican challenger Wayne Johnson, 24,622-9,044 in Dougherty County, helping the incumbent claim a 175,475-136,289 victory. Bishop’s total was 56.28% of the votes cast.

In the presidential race, Harris outpolled Trump 23,795-9,893 in Dougherty County.

By late Tuesday night, Trump needed to win just one of the so-called “Blue Wall” states to become only the second president to lose a re-election bid and return to office for a second term four years later. Democratic President Grover Cleveland lost to Republican challenger Benjamin Harrison in 1888 but came back to defeat Harrison in 1892.

Information taken from wire services is used in this report.

File Photo

Trump officially declared president; Dougherty sees huge voter turnout

Author

Trump officially declared president; Dougherty sees huge voter turnout

Author

Related Articles