Friday, August 07, 2020

Thursday balloting
Tennesseans went to the polls Thursday in congressional, state and local ballotting. The hot races in Cocke County were for congress. In the ballotting to replace retiring First District US Representative Phil Roe, there were 16 candidates on the Republican ballot but only one active candidate on the Democrat ballot. In the Republican primary, Josh Gapp received 1055 votes to 871 for Diana Harshbarger. However Harshbarger of Kingsport won districtwide. She is a pharmacist and the owner of Premier Pharmacy in Kingsport. She came under fire because her husband, Robert Harshbarger Jr., pleaded guilty in 2013 to distributing a misbranded drug and health care fraud, after selling counterfeit drugs for kidney dialysis treatments through his now defunct company. But the candidate said she had no involvement in the incident. Harschbarger during the campaign referred to her opponents as "snakes" and refused to participate in two debates involving the leading contenders. Districtwide, Harschbarger received 18,069 votes to second place candidate Timothy Hill who received 15,724 votes. The only candidate left in the Democrat primary, Blair Walsingham received 156 votes in Cocke county and 6,059 districtwide. Walsingham, 32, is a U.S. Air Force veteran who currently lives in Eidson. She said she is focused on being nonpartisan and solving problems. If elected, she said she would focus on the poverty of the region with the first step being the full expansion of broadband internet to the region, which would give many people access to better paying jobs. In the race to replace Lamar Alexander in the US Senate, there were 15 Republican candidates and five Democrat candidates. In the Republican primary Bill Hagerty,a former US ambassador to Japan, received 2425 votes and Manny Sethi received 1587 votes. Hagerty won statewide with 51 percent of the vote to 39 percent for Sethi. In the Democrat primary, Marquita Bradshaw got 117 votes and James Mackler 116 votes. Bradshaw is an environmentalist, black activist and a single mother. She garnered 36 percent of the vote statewide. Second place finisher Robin Kimbrough received 27 percent of the vote. The only contested local race was for Constable in the First District. Incumbent Josh Spurgeon received 429 votes compared to 307 votes for his challenger Randy Laws. Eleventh District State Representative Republican Jeremy Faison had no opposition and received 3133 complimentary votes,5,763 districtwide. Cocke County Assessor of Property Angie Ray Shelton had no opposition, and she garnered 4091 complimentary votes. Three Incumbent Cocke County School Board members also had no opposition; Rose Lovell received 613 votes; John P. Johnson 592 votes and Jimmy Stokely 432 votes. A total of 4976 voters cast ballots or 22 percent of the registered Cocke County voters.


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Thursday, April 29, 2021

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