Despite Democrats’ greatest election effort in local history, Hamilton County remains Republican – based on the 167,500 votes counted Tuesday evening. Another estimated 30,000 absentee ballots are being counted today.
And, the equally significant news is that the county cast the second-largest number of votes of any Indiana county, second only to Marion County. It was obviously a record voter turnout and created the need for another day to count all the ballots.
President Trump, who easily carried the state, trailed the GOP ticket in Hamilton County. He won, but with only 54 percent of the vote while other Republicans were winning by 62 percent or more in some cases. He won the county by 18,000 votes in the partial returns, while Gov. Eric Holcomb is winning by 53,000 votes over Democratic challenger Woody Myers.
For Congress, Victoria Spartz leads challenger Christina Hale by 13,000 votes in this county, but the Fifth District includes portions of six other counties, and results are yet to be tabulated in some of those areas, as well as in Hamilton County.
All Republican state legislators whose districts are entirely or partially within the county are leading by sizable margins.
All GOP candidates for county office have essentially won based on the votes counted last night. They include County Commissioner Mark Heirbrandt, Auditor Robin Mills, Treasurer candidate Susan Byer, Surveyor Kenton Ward and county council candidates Brad Beaver, Sue Maki and Steve Nation.
It was a big night for Republicans as election nights usually are locally, but few candidates showed up at the county fairgrounds where returns were posted for the public. The reason for the light attendance was assumed to be the great interest in the national election, with many folks wanting to watch the televised returns.
Elsewhere in today’s Reporter the vote totals (minus the 30,000 yet to be counted) can be found. The official and complete totals will appear in Thursday’s edition.