Terry Persell

An old political adage says a successful campaign hinges on how much money is raised. Athens resident Dr. Wayne Reynolds disproved the theory Tuesday night.

Reynolds, a former Athens City Schools superintendent, was outspent by his Republican primary opponent by a large margin, but was victorious in the race for the District 8 seat on the Alabama Board of Education.

Reynolds raised a total of $5,935, with $4,000 of that coming from self loans.

Opponent Rich McAdams raised $69,889.36 in total contributions. Even 5th District Congressman Mo Brooks, R-Alabama, was surprised by Reynolds’ victory during an interview with WAFF-48 Wednesday morning.

“ … Wayne Reynolds needs to explain to everybody how he won that state board of education primary election,” said Brooks, an incumbent who defeated challenger Clayton Hinchman in Tuesday’s primary. “I’m going to call him up, because if you can market that nationwide, you can make a lot of money.”

Reynolds credited his win with simply running a “grassroots campaign” in which he spent as much time campaigning in other counties as his home county of Limestone.

“I spent a lot of time on the road and contacted a lot of people,” he said. “I think my message of anti-common core resonated with people.”

When asked about the money, he noted he spent about 6 cents per vote compared to $2 per vote by McAdams.

“I never quit working. I have a lot of friends in the county who worked for me,” Reynolds said. “I didn’t have a staff, but had a lot of volunteers who helped me strategically.”

He feels both he and McAdams ran a clean issues-driven campaign void of negative comments. Reynolds will face Democratic candidate Jessica Fortune Parker in the Nov. 6 general election.

License commissioner

Athens City Councilman Joseph Cannon garnered the most votes in the race for Limestone County license commissioner, but he’ll face opponent Terry Persell in a July 17 runoff.

Cannon received 48.59 percent of the vote compared to 27.31 percent for Persell. Third-place challenger Gloria Cooper received 24.10 percent.

Cannon was thankful he made the runoff but said there would be six more weeks of campaigning ahead.

“I’ve got as much momentum as you can not winning it outright,” he said Wednesday. “I’m extremely blessed to have had the people behind me on this, and I think the reoccurring sentiment is that people believe in my work ethic. We just have to keep the momentum going.”

Like Cannon, Persell said he would continue to meet as many people as possible prior to July 17 and gather more support.

“I know it’s going to be a big challenge, and I’ve got a lot of ground to cover,” he said. “I would like to thank all those who worked for me. We’ll continue to push on and do our best.”

Turnout

Of Limestone County’s 60,776 registered voters, only 16,153 (26.58 percent) participated in Tuesday’s primaries. Of those, 13,691 cast a Republican ballot and 2,462 cast a Democratic ballot.

The statewide turnout was 26.57 percent with 897,496 ballots cast out of 3,377,902 registered voters.

Limestone’s final but unofficial vote totals can be found at https://bit.ly/2M3c4hn.