The general election is over and the Lafayette County precinct results have been tabulated. A breakdown of the votes indicates some interesting facts. One in particular is that the county appears to be split when it comes to political parties.

Registered voters in places like Abbeville and Taylor generally voted for Democrats, while voters closer to Oxford went with Republicans.

For example, Democratic challengers for governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state and state auditor all won in the Abbeville precinct. The lone exception was incumbent Attorney General Jim Hood, who is a Democrat, and State Treasurer Lynn Fitch. State senate District 9 Democrat Cristen Hemmins also won the Abbeville precinct over Republican incumbent Gray Tollison.

That was also the case in Taylor where the Democrats dominated the Republicans in all of the races. Incumbents were big winners in every Oxford precinct with the exception of District 3 in Oxford. There, Democrats won by slim margins in the statewide races.

Overall, 11,323 of 30,507 registered voters – or just over 37 percent – cast ballots in the county.

Supervisor races

The closest race was by far the District 3 supervisor race where Republican David Rikard edged Democrat Dale Timothy Gordon by a mere 12 votes. Gordon won the Abbeville precinct by 119 votes, Taylor by 145 votes and Oxford District 3 by 23 votes, but Rikard won College Hill by a wide margin, 299 votes. But Independent candidate Zach Carey pulled in 60 total votes, which likely made the difference in the outcome.

The other hotly contested supervisor’s race was in District 1 where Democrat Kevin Frye defeated Republican Rickey Babb and Independent candidate Bryan Hyneman. Frye won big in Oxford District 1 with nearly 800 votes, while Babb and Hyneman had 394 and 388 votes, respectively. Babb was the big winner in Lafayette Springs, more than doubling the number of votes cast for Frye and Hyneman. Babb also pulled in 227 votes in Yocona, while Frye had 121, which was enough to defeat Babb by 172 votes. Hyneman’s 425 total votes were enough to split the vote in favor of Frye.

Initiative 42

The hot-button issue of Initiative 42 also generally went along party lines. But surprisingly, all of the Oxford precincts voted in favor of Initiative 42, rather than the legislative backed Initiative 42A. As a county, 50.43 percent of Lafayette County voters favored I-42, while 49.57 percent were against both I-42 and I-42A and amending the state constitution regarding education.

Ironically, 42 voters favored I-42 and 42 voters favored I-42A in Harmontown.

For a complete precinct breakdown of contested races in the county, see page 7A of Sunday’s edition.