We are now more than a week separated from the Alabama party primaries. Locally, the ballots provided three major local races and one party primary that selected a candidate for a November race.

But, to those who understand politics in the Black Belt, the results from last week’s primary should not have come as a surprise.

Just about everyone outside the opposing campaigns knew the race for Dallas County Probate Judge was not going to be close.

Incumbent Kim Ballard had spent the past decades building relationships, building friendships, throughout the county. In fact, out of the 30 ballot boxes in the county, Ballard won 20 of them, many of them very comfortably. The ones he lost, he did not lose by much. In three of the boxes, he lost the vote by six votes or less. In the other seven, the worst defeat was suffered at the GWC Homes box, where he fell by 19.3 percent of the vote.

Surprised? No. Despite Tremayne Gorden’s best efforts, he remained a political newcomer who did not have a campaign victory to his name. He ran against a Goliath and he simply did not have a slingshot strong enough.

The race for Dallas County Commission Seat 3 was just as lopsided, with incumbent Curtis Williams winning reelection.

The race everyone knew was going to be very close, in fact was. No surprise there.

When Collins Pettaway was declared the winner of the Circuit Court Judge Place 1, those supporting incumbent Judge Tommy Jones began looking for reasons.

Was it the number of voters who insisted on casting a Republican ballot in Dallas County, when there wasn’t really a race of significant impact? Well, maybe.

There were 774 Republican ballots cast in Dallas County. Jones lost Dallas County by 176 votes. You can make the assumptions.

In the end, Pettaway won the total vote in the circuit by 1,360 votes, claiming victory in each of the five counties.

Last Tuesday’s results were noteworthy to say the least. But calling them surprising might be stretching it a bit.