Waynesboro: Short wins re-election, but conservatives will form majority on City Council

Mayor Terry Short won a tough re-election battle, but Bruce Allen and Lana Williams will form the backbone of a new conservative majority in Waynesboro after the 2020 municipal elections.

Short ran surprisingly strong among the 1,857 city residents who cast absentee ballots, receiving 64.1 percent of those votes to go on to the win over challenger Jim Wood.

Short received 57.1 percent of the vote overall in the two-candidate race for the at-large seat on City Council.

Wood, Allen and Williams had all received the backing of local Republicans in the race.

Wood was vocal in the Second Amendment sanctuary movement that had popped up earlier in the year as Democrats in the General Assembly worked to push through several pieces of gun-control legislation.

Allen won a fourth term representing Ward B, receiving 49.2 percent of the vote to win a three-way race with Marcia Geiger and former City Councilman DuBose Egleston.

Williams posted the most convincing win of the night, taking the Ward A seat with 59.2 percent of the vote in a two-candidate race with Kanise Marshall.

Allen and Williams will align with a third conservative, Bobby Henderson, to form a new majority on the City Council, which had a one-vote progressive majority with Short, Ward C member Sam Hostetter and Elzena Anderson, who stepped down as the Ward A representative earlier this year.

Story by Chris Graham