COVINGTON, Ga. – Demond Mason handily won the Democratic nomination for the District 2 seat on the Newton County Board of Commissioners and will assume the post in January. There is no Republican vying for the seat in November.

According to unofficial results from the Newton County Board of Elections, Mason beat the Earnest Simmons in Tuesday’s runoff with 66 percent of the vote. His 360 votes of the 544 cast in the district nearly doubled Simmons’ 184.

Mason was endorsed last week by outgoing commissioner Lanier Sims who called Mason “the right candidate to continue to move Newton County forward”.

Sims did not seek reelection.

Mason and Simmons garnered the most votes of the four candidates competing for the vacant seat in May to reach Tuesday’s runoff.

In the Republican gubernatorial runoff, Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp trounced Lt. Governor Casey Cagle in Newton County, picking up 82 percent of the local vote.  David Shafer was the choice of Newton County voters for Lt. Governor besting Geoff Duncan and Brad Raffensperger took the most local votes for secretary of state over David Belle Isle.

Statewide, Kemp garnered over 69 percent of the vote to earn the GOP nomination. He will face Democrat Stacey Abrams in the fall. Duncan holds a slim statewide lead over Shafer after earning just over 50 percent of the vote.  Raffensperger beat Belle Isle handily to earn the GOP nod for secretary of state.

In a statewide Democratic runoff, Georgia and Newton County voters picked Otha Thornton overwhelmingly to face incumbent Republican Richard Woods for state school superintendent in November.

According to the elections office, 7,829 of the county’s 66,630 registered voters cast ballots during the runoff. That amounts to 11.75 percent of the county’s voters. The office said the election results will be certified this Friday.