Good news in Waynesboro: Jim Wood won’t be the mayor in two months, because Republicans lost two of the three Waynesboro City Council races on the ballot on Tuesday.
Weird news in Waynesboro: 1,505 people who voted didn’t bother to offer a choice between the two At-Large candidates, Jeremy Sloat, the Republican and surprise winner, and former mayor Bobby Henderson.
Sloat won that race by 439 votes, a 51.7 percent to 47.1 percent margin.
According to the voting registrar, Lisa Jeffers, 873 people who voted early didn’t cast a vote in the At-Large race, making up more than half of the undervotes in that race.
Lorie Strother won in Ward A, receiving 56.2 percent of the vote in her race with the Republican nominee, Dave Goetze, and another independent, Terry Short, won a third term on City Council, defeating Republican nominee Will Flory, with Short getting 56.9 percent of the vote in the Ward B race.
Short, Strother and Kenny Lee, an independent elected in Ward C in 2022, would form a working majority on City Council when it reconvenes in January.
The quest by Waynesboro Democrats to pull out a win in the presidential race once again came up short. Donald Trump defeated Kamala Harris in the city by 620 votes, getting 52.0 percent of the vote, improving on his 51.4 percent showing in the 2020 election cycle.
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Chris Graham
