By Paul Gable
Russell Fry won the first round of the special Republican Primary for SC House District 106.
Fry gathered 1,152 votes for 44.88 percent of the votes cast. Tyler Servant, Horry County Council District 5 representative, was second with 851 votes or 33.15 percent. Roy Sprinkle finished in third place with 374 votes, 14.57 percent and Sam Graves had 190 votes for 7.4 percent of the vote.
Fry and Servant will face off in a special primary runoff in two weeks to see who will gain the Republican nomination and only name on the ballot for the September 15, 2015 special general election as the Democrats have no one in the race.
Fry, in his first attempt at elected office, said he was in complete disbelief when the returns started coming in and he was leading in the vast majority of precincts reporting.
“As late as yesterday (Monday), I was talking to people who didn’t know there was a special election,” Fry said. “I consider this a stunning upset in the first round, but the real work begins now.”
For Servant, it is the first time he has finished outside of first place in his short political career. He finished first in the primary voting for Horry County Council District 5 last June and won the runoff. He was unopposed in the general election.
Servant only assumed his county council seat January 1, 2015 and already he is looking to move on. Maybe he is finding out when you ask people to vote for you, they don’t expect you to come back after only seven months in office looking to get elected to something else.
One would think his political consultant and other advisors would have warned Servant that jumping into one race after another, as opportunity appears to present itself, makes it look like he is more interested in himself than the citizens he purports to represent.
We’ll see in two weeks.
Speak Up…