Koetting defeats Wheatly, 104-79

Donley County Precinct 3 Republicans chose a new county commissioner Tuesday, favoring challenger Neil Koetting over incumbent Andy Wheatly, 104-79.

The position was the only competitive local race on the Super Tuesday ballots. Koetting faces no Democratic challenger in the fall and will take over as commissioner in January when Wheatly’s term ends.

Also of local interest Tuesday, local Republicans favored keeping District Attorney Luke Inman on the job over his competitor, Bryan Denham, 597-126. Inman was also leading district wide.

In the 15-person race for the Republican nomination for the District 13 congressional seat, Josh Winegarner was the favorite of Donley County voters with 395 votes and Ronny Jackson was second with 184. Winegarner led district wide but did not have enough votes to avoid  a runoff with Jackson.

Local Democrats favored Greg Sagan to be their congressional candidate, but Sagan was running second district wide to Gus Trujillo with Timothy Gassaway coming in third. Sagan and Trujillo will face a runoff election.

Local and statewide Republicans heavily favored nominating Donald Trump for president again, although 35 local Republicans voted against the president in the primary.

Donley County Democrats would prefer to see Joe Biden as their presidential nominee with Bernie Sanders and Michael Bloomberg also picking up some local support.

For more election coverage, see next week’s Enterprise.