Election night was hampered in Butler County by “system” problems that delayed the release of results. Normally available by 9 p.m. on election night, the results were still pending as of 11 p.m. It is rare for Butler County to see lengthy delays in the tabulation of election results.
All counties in the races for the 25th Senate District and 153rd House District races have been tabulated.
In the hotly contested Republican Senate race, as of 10 p.m., Jason Bean held a comfortable lead over his three rivals, garnering 55.9% of the 20,066 votes tallied at that point. After Butler County reported shortly after 11 p.m., he secured the victory with 46.2%, or 12,789 votes out of 27,690 votes.
Bean’s closest rival without Butler County results was Poplar Bluff’s Eddy Justice, but as the county swung heavily in favor of Poplar Bluff’s Jeff Shawan, he fell to third with 17.7% of the votes. Shawan had 20.8% with all precincts reporting.
Poplar Bluff’s Steve Cookson came in with 15.2%.
By 10 p.m., only 4,523 votes had been tallied in the Republican 153rd House District race, with Darrell Atchison holding a comfortable lead at 51% of the vote. He maintained the lead as Butler County results came in with 48.5%, or 3,617 of the 7,451 total votes cast.
Larry Kimbrow received the most votes of the candidates in Butler County with 1,388 to Atchison’s 1,307. He earned 34.9% of the total votes cast for the race. Jack “Skip” Johnson received 16.5% of the total votes cast.
“I appreciate the support from the people that we got to meet through the campaign,” said Atchison as he awaited results.
Atchison said he “campaigned very hard and met a lot of great people throughout the district. I just enjoyed meeting the people, and my idea of representing the district was to get out and meet the people.”
Unlike the Senate race, the House race, Atchison felt, was mostly non-negative.
“I think the people appreciated that we stayed positive,” he said.
Representatives for Bean said he would not comment Tuesday evening, and was spending time with family.
Neither winner from Tuesday’s primary will face a Democratic challenger in the November general election.
State Senate District 25 includes Shannon, Carter, Butler, Stoddard, New Madrid, Pemiscot, Dunklin and Mississippi counties.
State Representative District 153 includes Carter, Ripley, Butler and Wayne counties.
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