By Louie Graves
News-Leader staff
There will only be two local runoff races on April 2 for persons who cast ballots in the March 5 Preferential Primary Election.
Early voting will begin Tuesday, March 26 at the Carter Day Training Center, North Main, Nashville. There will be a change in hours from previous Early Voting elections. Open hours will be 8-4:30 Monday through Friday, reflecting regular open hours at the county courthouse.
There will be no early voting on Saturdays.
On Election Day, Tuesday, April 2, there will be only two voting places — at the Carter Day Training Center in Nashville, and at the Methodist Church in Mineral Springs.
The Republican runoff race is for the party nomination for State Representative District 88. In Howard County, Dolly Henley led the voting with 376 votes, not enough
to escape a runoff with Arnetta Bradford who got 355 votes here and narrowly led the voting in Hempstead and Miller counties. A third candidate was Robert Leslie Bradford (no relation) who got 56 votes here.
The other runoff for Howard County voters will be restricted to persons who voted the Democrat ballot in the Preferential Primary, and will be for the seat on the Howard County Quorum Court for District 9, the area roughly including Mineral Springs and the area south and west. Juanita G. Jackson led voting in the three-way race with 47 votes, trailed by Stacy T. Turner with 45, and Margie Green with 20.
Voters will also have a state-wide runoff for the non-partisan State Supreme Court Chief Justice Position 1 between Justices Karen Baker and Rhonda Wood.
Other race results from the election:
Howard County JP District 6 — Elizabeth McDaniel, 79, Josh Zylks, 64.
Mineral Springs School Board Zone 3 — Ricky Gamble 36, Nikita N. Hopkins, 22, Kay Thornton 11. Incumbent Gamble wins without a runoff.
Mineral Springs voters also got to vote on whether to continue electing city council members at-large or by a ‘within-wards’ process. They voted in favor of the within-ward selection by 59-33.
County Clerk Keri Teague said that the election went off smoothly, and that certification of the results was expected later in the week.
Pike County
MURFREESBORO — In the 2024 preferential primary election that concluded last Tuesday, March 5, Pike County had 1,309 total registered voters participate in the process out of 6,221 possible registered voters.
All results were made official after being certified by the Pike County Election Commission last Friday.
In the U.S. President (R) race, Donald Trump received 1,026 votes to outpace Nikki Haley’s 120.
State Senate District 03 saw incumbent Steve Crowell finish with a 380-181 lead over challenger Mark Silvey. Crowell would win district wide with a total of 5,490 votes to Silvey’s 2,201.
Randy Lamb received 82 total votes to win the Justice of the Peace District 1 race over Roger Don Floyd who finished with 43 votes.
In the U.S. President (D) race, Joseph R. Biden got 94 votes to easily outpace all other challengers, none of who received more than three votes.
For Chief Justice of the state Supreme Court, Barbara Womack Webb received 454 votes, followed by Karen Baker with 336 votes, Jay Martin with 222 votes and Rhonda Wood with 145 votes. The ensuing runoff between Baker and Wood (the top two in statewide results) will be held this November on the general election ballot.
State Supreme Court Justice position two’s race saw Courtney Hudson take 738 votes to Carlton D. Jones’ 379. Hudson won the statewide race by a 188,924-124,501 total.
In a nearby election, attorney Dana Stone — formerly of Murfreesboro — was the top vote-getter in the District 38 Judge race that was held in Hempstead and Nevada counties and featured four candidates. Stone earned 42.84% of the vote and will face off against second place challenger Bryce Allen Montgomery (29.63%) in the November election later this year.
