Incumbents claim victory
Burton wins Clinton mayoral race as voters favor familiar faces
A voter exits the Clinton Community Center polling place during last Tuesday’s general election after casting a ballot. (photo:G. Chambers Williams III )
His race was the only mayoral position in the county that had more than one candidate on the ballot.
Countywide, all city council, mayoral and school board races were non-partisan, with all candidates running as independents.
Meanwhile, Republican candidates dominated the rest of the ballot in the state and federal offices up for vote, with statewide winner Marsha Blackburn running for governor against Democrat Jerri Green and 13 independents.
In Anderson County, Blackburn received 11,223 votes (46.83%), outpolling Green, who had 9,989 votes (41.68%), and the leading independent candidate, David Hatley, who got 2,309 votes (9.63%). Those percentages were near mirrors of the final statewide vote counts for governor.
Other Republicans winning in Anderson County:
• Bill Hagerty for U.S. Senate, with 57.68% of the vote; he also won statewide over Marquita Bradshaw, with 55.08% of the vote to Bradshaw’s 42.91%.
• U.S. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (58.37%) beat his Democrat opponent Anna Golladay (39.21%) and five independents.
• Jimmy Matlock (58.26%) beat David Miller for the Tennessee Senate in District 5.
• Rick Scarbrough (57.28%) defeated Democrat Ann Backus (42.72%) for re-election to state House District 33.
• Ed Butler (72.09%) beat Democrat R. Jason Goodman (27.91%) for re-election to state House District 41.
The only Democrat victor in Anderson County was for a District 8 seat on the County Commission. Gina Grubb (58.04%), a previously self-described Democratic Socialist, defeated the Republican candidate, former District Judge Don Layton (41.96%). This was a special election that resulted from the decision by the winner in the August county general election not to take the seat.
Kerry D. Templin won his second four-year term as mayor of Rocky Top, with no opposition.
Jason Stiltner was re-elected mayor in Oliver Springs, also without a challenger.
Oak Ridge did not have the mayor’s position on the ballot. Like Norris, the mayor is not directly elected, but is chosen by a vote of the new council every two years.
Clinton
In Clinton, Burton received 1,525 votes, or 50.5% of the total ballots cast, to defeat Stephen McNally, who got 1,123 votes (37.19%), and Delanie Davis, who polled 372 votes (12.32%).
In the Clinton City Council races:
• Ward 1: Rick Meredith won with 1,661 votes (60.03%), outpolling his sole challenger, Andrea Townsend, who received 1,106 votes (39.97%).
• Ward 2: Brian D. Hatmaker was re-elected with no opposition, polling 2,222 votes.
• Ward 3: Wendy Maness won re-election with 1,843 votes (73.84%); defeating sole challenger Cathie Auxier, who got 653 votes (26.16%).
There were two Clinton city Board of Education seats on the ballot, for Wards 2 and 3.
• Ward 2: Curtis W. Isabell won with 1,987 votes (58.22%), defeating Timothy A. Bible, who got 1,426 votes (41.78%).
• Ward 3: Zach Farrar was unopposed, and polled 2,247 votes.
Three proposed Tennessee constitutional amendments passed easily in Anderson County and statewide, including one instituting a permanent ban on any statewide real-property taxes.
Rocky Top
Two incumbent Rocky Top council members, Jeff Gilliam and Joe Tackett, won re-election with no opposition.
Norris
Only five candidates ran for the five City Council seats.
On the ballot and duly elected were Councilmen Bill Grieve and Charles P. “Chuck” Nicholson, who were the only previously elected candidates to file, along with Councilmen Travis Honeycutt and Alex Munro, recent appointments to the board, and newcomer Zach Cross.
Absent from the race was Mayor Chris Mitchell, who chose not to run for re-election to the council this year after serving nearly 18 years on the council – all of them as mayor.
All five Norris council members are elected every two years.
Early voting for Nov. 3 outpaced 2022’s total by 26.69% in Anderson County.
Countywide, including early voting and election day, there were 24,161 total ballots cast, out of the 50,739 registered voters, a 47.6% turnout.