Seal wins Republican Primary for State Senate seat

Claiborne County voters cast their ballots on Thursday in a general election for several county offices and the primary for statewide and national races.

Jessie Seal, a Hancock County native who now resides in New Tazewell defeated incumbent Frank S. Niceley in the Republican primary for Tennessee’s 8th District Senate seat. District 8 includes Claiborne, Hancock, Grainger, Union, Jefferson and Sevier counties. Seal received a total of 10,200 votes to Niceley’s 8,132 overall. In Claiborne, Seal won by a margin of 2,554 to 1,316, according to unofficial vote totals from the Claiborne County Election Commission and the Secretary of State’s office.

In November, Seal will run against Democrat R.E. Ellison who was unopposed in her primary.

Incumbent U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn easily won her Republican primary with 367,711 votes to challenger Tres Wittum’s 43,228. Claiborne voters favored Blackburn with 3,522 votes to Wittum’s 322.

Democrat Gloria Johnson will challenge Blackburn in November. Johnson received 143,904 votes in the Democratic primary to easily outdistance Marquita Bradshaw (44,635), Lola Denise Brown (10,025) and Civil Miller-Watkins (6,420). Claiborne Democrats gave Johnson 289 votes, while Bradshaw received 54, Brown 30 and Miller-Watkins 11.

The race for U.S. House of Representative District 2 will see Republican incumbent Tim Burchett face off against Democrat challenger Jane George. Both were unopposed in Thursday’s primary. Burchett received 3,636 votes in Claiborne County while George received 313.

Also unopposed were Republicans Gary W. Hicks Jr. for the Tennessee House of Representatives District 9 and Dennis Powers for Tennessee House of Representatives District 36. Both will also be unopposed in November as no Democrats were on the primary ballot for those seats. That was also the case for Patty Mills, who is unopposed for the State Executive Committee’s 8th District seat.

The local general election saw one change on the Claiborne County School Board. In District 4, Miranda Adams defeated incumbent Mark Reece and Dustin Clay Daniels. She received 428 votes to Reece’s 387 and Daniels’ 189.

In District 1, incumbent Shane K. Bunch received 359 votes to hold off a challenge from Cynthia Logan, who garnered 303 votes. In District 6 and District 7 Danny Pearman and Wade Breeding, respectively, were unopposed.

In the Claiborne County Commission’s District 2 race, Haley Barker retained her seat with 499 votes to David Edward Guy’s 184 votes.

In the Claiborne County Trustee race, incumbent Denise Alexander won with 2,421 votes to David Painter’s 2,090.

Road Superintendent Ronnie Pittman (3,350 votes) and Assessor of Property Shane Breeding (3,832 votes) were both re-elected without opposition.

Claiborne voters were also in line with the rest of the state in voting to retain At Large Supreme Court Judge Dwight Tarwater and Western Division Court of Criminal Appeals Judge Matthew J. Wilson by 3-1 margins.

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