By John Dobberstein, Editor
Christi Gillespie, Broken Arrow’s vice mayor, and Shelley Gwartney emerged as the top two vote getters in the Republican primary Tuesday for Senate District 33.
Gwartney and Gillespie will face off in a runoff election on Aug. 27, with the winner facing Democrat Bob Willis in November.
Gillespie easily outdistanced the field with 44% of the vote in the race for the newly re-drawn district, most of which lies in Broken Arrow.
Gwartney finished second with 25%, overcoming a stiff challenge from Bill Bickerstaff as he garnered 21.9% for third place. Tim Brooks finished fourth in the contest with 8.7%.
To the east, in a competitive race for House District 98, incumbent Rep. Dean Davis finished first in the GOP primary over determined challenger Gabe Woolley — by just one vote — with the final count 911-910 Both candidates finished a shade above 42% of the vote and the two will be headed to a runoff.
J. David Taylor finished third with 15.2% of the vote. District 98 encompasses portions of Tulsa and Wagoner counties and includes much of eastern Broken Arrow
To the west in the GOP primary for state Senate District 25, which includes much of Bixby, Bixby Mayor Brian Guthrie garnered 57% of the vote to win over Jeff Boatman, who registered 43%.
It was an uneventful night for U.S. Rep. Kevin Hern in his GOP primary matchup for District 1, as he trounced challenger Paul Rouse with 87% of the vote.
Joan Torrance says
Go Shelley! I got out and voted for ya !
Stay in there it is a time to change things.
GWARTNEY for State Senate!
John Jay says
Wow, you sure seem to be promoting gillespie quite a bit. Why is that? You actually need to report on all the dark pac money she has received that is going after the TRUE Christian conservatives. Please, just do your job and don’t jump in the tank for anyone!!!
John Dobberstein says
Dear John: There have only been two articles about that campaign this year: one was actually a series of articles about important issues where each of the candidates who attended the Citizens for Liberty forum provided answers; and an election-day story. Not sure how else you feel we are promoting her. By the way … any knowledge or insight into why Shelley Gwartney’s campaign will not return phone calls about a debate that the BA Sentinel and Trey Savage at NonDoc has been trying to schedule for 2 weeks?