What happened to the Republicans?

Of the 13,327 ballots cast in this primary, only 312 were in the Republican primary.

The Republicans fielded no local candidates, letting the Democrats fight for the local offices in their primaries, with the Democratic Primary determining three Dallas County Commission seats, a district judge seat, a district attorney seat and a circuit judge seat.

The Republicans only vied for votes in the Associate Justice races in place 1, place 2, place three and another pair of candidates for the Court of Civil Appeals. A Republican candidate for the 7th Congressional District ran unopposed, as did three Democratic candidates for the Associate Justice slots.

None of the local candidates will face any opposition in the general election, making the race a formality without a write-in campaign.

Alabama’s “sore loser law” prevents any candidate from running as an independent now that the primaries are over.

Despite this apparent “gentleman’s agreement” both the Republicans and Democrats faced tough competition in their respective races.

As of presstime, the race for Fourth Judicial Circuit district attorney was still undecided, too close to call.

Bob Armstrong and incumbent Nathaniel Walker will face-off in the June 29 runoff in their race for District Court Judge. Jimmy Nunn, city attorney, bowed out of the competition with 22 percent of the vote.

Dealing with somewhat lesser competition, the three incumbents for Dallas County Commission – Kimbrough Ballard, Connel “Big Daddy” Towns and Curtis Williams – all kept their jobs for another four years.

In fact, the closest any of them came to losing was Kimbrough Ballard, who won with a solid 54.18 percent of the vote. Larry Nickles picked up 45.82 percent.

Ballard was pleased with the outcome and expressed his respect for Nickles after the unofficial results came in.

“I’ve been up since 3 a.m. this morning,” Ballard said. “I’m glad its over. Larry (Nickles) ran an excellent race and I look to him for input in the future.”

Ballard also said he was happy the Commission managed to stay the same despite the election.

“The team is still together and I think that tells you a lot,” Ballard said. “This race is not about Kim Ballard, this is about what’s good for Dallas County.”

Other incumbents faced even less pressure, with incumbent Wiggins taking home 64.15 percent of Dallas County’s votes over his opponent, Farrell McKelvey Wright, with 35.85 percent.

In the race for the 7th Congressional District was fought between, the incumbent, Rep. Artur Davis and a challenger, Albert Turner. Davis defeated his competition, by more than 9,000 votes, 87.36 percent to Turner’s 12.64 percent. The Republican

All of the Republican candidates fought for Supreme Court seats, in what many considered a referendum on ousted Chief Justice Roy Moore’s Commandments stand.

Tom Parker, running for place number one on the Court seat, picked up 174 of the 312 votes cast, to win 62.59 percent of the county’s vote.

Statewide, Parker won with 52 percent of the vote.

In place number 2, Patti M. Smith beat Pam Baschab with 58 percent of the state’s vote. Despite her showing across the state, Baschab won 161 of Dallas County’s Republican votes, or 60.53 percent. Smith only picked up 105 votes.

Michael Bolin led the pack in a four way race for place number 3, in the state counts. Statewide,

Bolin lead with almost 50 percent late Tuesday night. Countywide, Stokes led with 28.14 percent, against Peggy Givhan, 25.38 percent; and Denny Holloway, for 3.79 percent; but lost against Jerry Stokes, with 42.42 percent.

For the Court of Civil Appeals, Tommy Bryan won the primary against the unfortunately named Win Johnson, with 77.08 percent of Dallas County’s votes and 72 percent of the state’s vote. Johnson brought home 22.92 percent countywide and 28 percent statewide.

Both President George Bush and Sen. John Kerry won the primary elections for President.