WISE — There was no drama involved in Tuesday’s primary elections in Virginia.
As expected, Republican George Allen will square off against Democrat Tim Kaine for Virginia’s U.S. Senate seat in November, a contest that actually shaped up last year when Sen. Jim Webb announced he would not seek re-election after serving just one term.
Allen and Kaine are both former governors of Virginia, and Allen served a term in the U.S. Senate before getting bounced by Webb.
Few Virginia voters bothered with the primaries, with very low turnout reported statewide and regionally.
As for the Republican results, with more than 98 percent of all precincts statewide reporting in before 9:30 p.m., Allen coasted to a comfortable affirmation of his GOP Senate candidacy with 65.28 percent of the vote.
Jamie L. Radtke was creeping toward a distant second place finish behind Allen with a slightly more than 23 percent of the vote, followed by R.G. “Bob” Marshall with 6.76 percent and E.W. Jackson with 4.76 percent. Total voter turnout in the GOP primary was listed at a just over 4.8 percent.
Locally, the GOP primary attracted a 1.479 percent turnout (350 out of a total of 23,658 voters) in Wise County. Radtke collected nine votes (2.57 percent), Allen 278 votes (79.42 percent), Jackson 45 (12.85 percent) and Marshall 18 (5.14 percent).
Turnout numbers were also low in Lee County (1.978 percent of registered voters, or just 350 voters of a total 16,429) where Radtke collected seven votes (2.14 percent), Allen 296 (91.07 percent), Marshall 13 (4 percent) and Jackson nine votes (2.76 percent).
In Scott County, Radtke received 13 votes (3.5 percent) to Allen’s 343 (92.45 percent). Marshall had eight votes in Scott County (2.15 percent) and Jackson seven (1.88 percent). Scott County’s turnout for the GOP primary was 371 out of a total of 16,206 registered voters, or 2.289 percent.
Allen took 37 votes in the city of Norton for 92.5 percent of the vote in the city’s GOP gubernatorial primary while Radtke, Marshall and Jackson received a grand total of one vote each (2.5 percent apiece). Turnout was 40 voters in the GOP gubernatorial primary out of a total of 2,526 registered voters, or 1.583 percent of the total number of voters in the city.