The runoff election for the District 4 and District 5 seats on the Baldwin County Board of Commissioners came down to early votes.
Such led to victories for Andrew Strickland in the District 4 race and Scott Little in the District 5 race.
Strickland, a former member of the Milledgeville Planning & Zoning Commission and former chairman of the Baldwin County Republican Party, defeated Jay Wright III, a local businessman.
The other big winner Tuesday was Scott Little, a singer/songwriter and local businessman.
Little, a first-time political candidate, easily defeated incumbent Commissioner Johnny H. Westmoreland, who is in his 12thyear of serving as an elected official in Baldwin County. Westmoreland is currently serving as commission chairman.
Strickland garnered 535 votes or 53.50% to Wright’s 465 votes or 46.50%, according to unofficial election results released by Baldwin County Probate Judge and Elections Superintendent Todd A. Blackwell.
The difference in the race was the number of votes cast last week during the five days of early voting.
Strickland, a board certified paramedic with Air Evac, a medical helicopter company, collected 279 votes in the early voting period versus Wright, who received 214 votes.
Reached at his home after election results were made public, Strickland told The Union-Recorder that he was excited and ready to get down to work as a county commissioner.
“I’m very excited about working for the people of the 4thDistrict,” Strickland said. “And I am very humbled by their support. It’s an incredible responsibility that’s not lost in me. I’m just very excited about getting to work.”
Strickland said he is anxious to hit the ground running.
“We hit the ground really hard during the special election campaign,” Strickland said. “One of my goals was to beat number of votes I received in the May Republican primary election. I had 447 votes before and I wanted to raise that number. I knew it was going to be tough, because this was a runoff election.”
Strickland said he simply tried to connect with as many voters as he could.
“We pushed early voting a lot,” he said.
Strickland said he could not have accomplished what he did were it not for what he described was an amazing team.
“I also had the most amazing people support me, too,” he said. “It wasn’t about me. It was about them. They worked so hard on my behalf to get people to turn out to the polls and vote. There’s no way I could have done this without those wonderful people behind me.”
Strickland will replace Commissioner Henry R. Craig on Jan. 1, 2025, as the new District 4 county commissioner. Craig announced earlier this year that he would not seek reelection.
Wright, who was the first of the political candidates to start attending commission meetings, said he was disappointed that he lost the election.
“I was pretty shocked at the voter turnout,” Wright told the newspaper by telephone. “One thousand votes. That’s crazy.”
Wright commended those who supported and voted for him in the election.
“I ran a clean campaign and I know I will be able to sleep easy knowing that I did what was right,” Wright said. “Yes, I’m upset that I lost, but my prayer all along was that God place me where he wanted me to be and I guess that was the answer to that prayer. And that’s OK, because when he shuts one door, he’s going to open another. And I’m fine with that. I’m 100% fine with that.”
In the District 5 special runoff election, Little did something that most newcomers have a difficult time doing — defeating an incumbent office holder.
He appeared to have no trouble as he collected 516 votes or 71.17% to Westmoreland’s 209 votes or 28.83%, according to unofficial election results.
As was the case in the Strickland win over Wright, Little’s big margin of victory resulted from the number of votes cast for him during the early voting period.
Little received 260 votes during early voting versus Westmoreland, who received only 91 votes.
“All I did was ask my voters to make their previous vote count by doing it one more time,” Little said.
Little said he was thankful that he was able to run the kind of political campaign he set out to run from the beginning.
“This was a clean campaign, and I couldn’t have done that without Mr. Westmoreland,” Little said. “Mr. Westmoreland ran a very clean campaign. He was kind to me at every turn. So for me to be proud of my campaign, I have to credit him, too. He was very kind to me and he didn’t have to be.”
Little said he was grateful that the campaign was not nasty as some political races turned out.
“I’m looking forward to taking office and doing the people’s work,” Little said.
Westmoreland discovered he lost his bid for reelection after getting out of an executive meeting with fellow county commissioners.
The first thing Westmoreland did was to offer his congratulations to Little.
“There are a lot of things to do over the next six months while I’m still in office, and I plan to continue to serve the people of District 5 right up until the end of my term,” Westmoreland said.
Both of the newly elected commissioners are Republicans.
They will join the three other commissioners next January — Sammy Hall, Emily C. Davis and Kendrick Butts, who currently serves as vice chairman.
