The Eighth Circuit Judicial District will have its third new judge holding Place One in the last four years.
Attorney Caleb May defeated sitting appointed Judge Brian Burns, collecting more than two-thirds of the vote across the four-county district. In Newton County, the election day tally was 5,620 for May while Burns had 2,747 votes. That didn’t include affidavit ballots or absentee votes, which were counted up to five days after the election.
In the entire area, May’s vote tally was 20,929 compared to 13,117 for Burns.
May said that he thanked his wife, Natalie, family, friends and others who have helped him during this campaign.
“All glory I give to God for bringing us through this campaign,” May said in a post on Facebook. “Thank you to all of those who provided help. I did not do this alone, and I have been blessed by all of you. Thank you Judge Burns for the good and hard fought race. And, finally, thank you to the people of Leake, Scott, Newton, and Neshoba Counties for electing me to be your new Circuit Court Judge. Now it is time to get to work.”
In the other contested local race, Newton County voters elected Carol Reeves Youngblood to Election Commissioner District 5. She earned more than 72 percent of the vote over challenger Debra Ann Phillips.
Counting only Election Day votes, more than 63 percent of the 13,822 registered voters turned out. That did not include any absentee vote counts, which could have pushed the county overall vote total to more than 10,000 votes.
At the top of the ticket, incumbent President Donald J. Trump collected more than 6,000 votes in the county to easily defeat Democratic challenger Joseph Biden. Trump was projected to win Mississippi’s six electoral votes, but Biden was projected by the Associated Press to win the overall electoral vote. As of deadline Tuesday, the Trump campaign was still pursuing avenues to challenge the election in the toss-up states of Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia and Pennsylvania.
According to the U.S. Constitution, state electors must cast their votes for president on Dec. 14, the Monday after the second Wednesday in December.
In other races, Cindy Hyde-Smith was projected to win re-election over Democratic challenger Mike Espy. She earned 5,738 votes in Newton County compared to 2,723 for Espy for election day votes only.
Rep. Michael Guest was easily re-elected to the Third Congressional District over Democratic challenger Dot Benford. Guest received the highest votes in Newton County among all challenged races, collecting 6,206 votes compared to 2,411 votes for Benford.
For Mississippi Supreme Court associate justice, the race incumbent Kenny Griffis and Latrice Westbrook remained in doubt after election day. According to Mississippi Today, Griffis had 52 percent of the vote and held a lead of more than 13,000 votes as of Wednesday. No final count was available as of press time. Griffis won Newton County with more than 5,700 votes.
