Christmas came early for Athens County Common Pleas Court Judge George P. McCarthy Tuesday night.
Christmas came early for Athens County Common Pleas Court Judge George P. McCarthy Tuesday night.
About 30 minutes before hearing he would be re-elected, McCarthy said he felt like a little child.
“I was just basically stressed out all day,” McCarthy said. “Can you imagine that? Stressed, stressed, stressed. It’s like Christmas. I’m here waiting to see if I’m getting the bike or not.”
About 30 minutes later, 12,339 ballots had been tallied in every precinct in the county, and the results became public.
They showed McCarthy collected 6,966 votes to challenger Herman Carson’s 5,373.
“I’m grateful for the opportunity to serve the community once again,” McCarthy said.
Carson, current director of the Athens County branch of the Office of the Ohio Public Defender, said he was just as nervous as McCarthy, spending his day “sitting around watching the clock tick” as the voters headed to the polls and then as ballots were counted.
“We ran it how we planned,” he said of his campaign.
As other defeated candidates did, Carson — who hung out with local Democrats at the Pigskin Bar and Grille, partly attributed his defeat to low voter turnout.
“There is nothing I would do differently; we followed a plan,” Carson said. “The low voter turnout might have played a factor.”
Alan Trout, chair of the Athens County Democratic Party, predicted Carson’s loss.
“Herman is losing,” Trout said before all the results came in. “We will never make that ground back up.”
Both candidates appreciated their voters and supporters afterward.
“I just want to thank all the support from everyone,” McCarthy told his group of supporters at the Over Hang, 63 N. Court St. “I really appreciate all of you for everything.”
McCarthy will earn $121,350 annually as Athens County Common Pleas Court Judge.
— Matt Cudahy contributed to this article.
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