Walton, Brown win big

The Republican grasp on the Putnam County electorate remained strong Tuesday evening.

With Democrats contesting only two races at the county level, both garnered less than 35 percent of the county-wide vote.

Incumbent Coroner Dave Brown bested Democrat challenger Wally Steele by more than 5,700 votes, 9,977-4243 (70 percent).

The race for District 3 Putnam County commissioner was similarly lopsided, with veteran GOP Commissioner Don Walton scoring a resounding 9,457-4,881 (66 percent) victory over Democrat challenger Nancy Wells.

The victories fell in line with the rest of the county vote, where all Republican candidates in contested races at the national, state, district and county level garnered anywhere from 63 to 84 percent of the vote.

For his part, Brown was gracious in victory, praising Steele for the campaign the two ran.

“I want to congratulate Wally Steele for running a good campaign,” Brown said. “We ran a clean campaign. Neither of us said a negative word about the other. There were no dirty tricks.”

Brown finished with a jab at the two party standard bearers running for the White House.

“I think the top of the ticket can take a lesson from the bottom of the ticket.”

Steele was also gracious in defeat.

“I think Dave Brown will do a good job and I congratulated him there at the courthouse.”

Brown is now ready to get to work on his second term, which he indicates will be his final.

“The next four years, I plan to make the department better so that in 2020 I can hand off to the next coroner the best small county coroner’s office in the state of Indiana,” Brown said.

In the commissioner’s race, Walton is also looking forward to four more years, which will bring his total years in service of the county to 36 — 32 as a commissioner and four on the county council.

“We’ve got a lot of road work started and we need to do more in the next four years,” Walton said. “I’m looking forward to improved a lot more roads and bridges.

“We look forward to working with the good people here in Putnam County,” he added. “We have a good county, great people.”

On the other side of the coin, Wells was philosophical about the defeat.

“I’ve run for election before. I’ve won, I’ve lost. The votes come in. Voters make their choice, and then it’s over,” Wells said.

“I was actually looking forward to doing the job, but that’s OK. Maybe another time,” she added.

While the scope of the Republican victories may seem a bit surprising, neither Democrat was particularly shocked at the outcome. No Democrat has won a county-wide office since 1994.

“I think the county went like it normally does. It went Republican like it normally does,” Steele said.

“I can’t say I’m at all surprised,” Wells said. “It’s a very Republican county once you get outside the town of Greencastle, but the sun still comes up tomorrow.”

Wells took only three of 31 precincts, all of them within the Greencastle city limits: Second West, First South and Third West.

Steele carried just one precinct, Third West.

Some election watchers might have predicted a closer race for commissioner after Walton won his primary challenge from Mike Clark by just 388 votes.

In the end, though, longtime county voting trends held up.

In the other county-wide elections, unchallenged Republicans holding onto their offices include Circuit Court Judge Matt Headley, Auditor Lorie Hallett, District 1 County Commissioner David Berry and At-Large County Councilmen Gene Beck, Larry Parker and Phil Gick.

Deputy Treasurer Kathy Minnick also took the uncontested treasurer’s contest.