It wasn’t exactly a Republican wave, but the GOP did pick up two State Senate seats in Tuesday’s state elections to wrest control of the senior legislative chamber from Democrats.
Bryce Reeves slid past Democratic incumbent Edd Houck at the wire in a tight 17th District race to post an unofficial 86-vote victory in the race that tipped the scales in favor of Republicans. The close margin was within the margin of victory that would trigger a recount of votes. Reeves garnered 50.01 percent of the 45,000 votes cast in the district to Houck’s 49.82 percent.
Earlier in the evening, Republican Bill Stanley had upset Democratic State Sen. Roscoe Reynolds in a close race in the 20th District by a 643-vote margin in a three-way race that saw independent Jeff Evans receive 3,875 votes. Stanley won 46.8 percent of the vote to Reynolds’ 45.5 percent.
The pickups were short of projections heading into Election Day, with some analysts thinking the Republicans could take four or five seats from Democratic incumbents among the 17 seats held by Democrats that GOP candidates were contesting. The two-seat pickup brings the two parties even at 20 members each in the Senate. With Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling, a Republican, breaking ties, Republicans have effective control of the chamber for the first time since losing their outright majority in the 2007 election cycle.
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