Pocahontas County voters turned out in big numbers Tuesday to make changes in courthouse offices. Sixty-eight percent of registered Democrat voters cast ballots, and 43.83 percent of Republicans voted in the Primary.

Only Assessor Dolan Irvine, who was unopposed, and Magistrate Kathy Beverage, who ran in a field of four, will return to their offices in January. Neither has a Republican challenger in November.

Beverage said she chalked up her win to campaigning door-to-door.

But on the national and statewide tickets, Democrats here chose to stick with the familiar.

Democratic voters in Pocahontas County, along with the rest of West Virginia, backed Hillary Clinton for President of the United States. Clinton got 1342 votes, while Barack Obama got 575. John Edwards, who was still on the ticket, although he’d dropped out of the race, got 218 votes. Eighty-three Democrats did not for any Presidential candidate.

With the nomination already in hand, John McCain got 500 votes here to Alan Keyes’ five, Rudy Giuliani’s 10, Mitt Romney’s 22, Jerry Curry’s 10, Mike Huckabee’s 78 and Ron Paul’s 27.

Wide margins like that were prevalent throughout the ballot.

U. S. Senator Jay Rockefeller, who has a home in Pocahontas County, got 78.51 percent of the votes in his race against Billy Hendricks, Jr., and Sheirl Fletcher. Rockefeller, with 1669 votes, was the runaway winner over Fletcher with 284 votes. Hendricks received 169 votes and 92 voters did not make a choice in the race. Rockefeller will face Jay Wolfe in November.

Congressman Nick Rahall was unopposed in the Primary, but will have challenger Marty Gearheart on his heels in November.

Pocahontas County voters also backed Governor Joe Manchin, who managed nearly 72 percent of the vote here. Manchin defeated challenger Melvin Kessler 1505 to 589 votes. Manchin will face off against Russ Weeks in the General Election.

In other statewide races on the Democratic ticket, Natalie Tennant got the nod from Pocahontas County with 771 votes, while Joe DeLong got 648 votes and Billy Wayne Bailey got 484 votes. Tennant was projected to win the race statewide. Tennant will face Charles Minimah in November.

Auditor Glen Gainer and Treasurer John Perdue were unopposed. No Republican candidate filed in either of these races.

Gus Douglass defeated Wayne Casto both here and statewide. Douglass got 1366 votes to Casto’s 574. Republican T. Lawrence Beckerle narrowly defeated Michael Teets here with 260 votes to 252; however, Teets was projected to win statewide.

Attorney General Darrell McGraw was unopposed. Republican Dan Greear defeated Hiram Lewis, also by a narrow margin. Greear got 262 votes to Lewis’ 239.

For Justice of the Supreme Court Pocahontas County voters chose Margaret Workman, with 1,130 votes, but were split over Elliott “Spike” Maynard, and Menis Ketchum, who each received 629 votes. Bob Bastress, with 500 votes, finished fourth here. Statewide, Democrats chose Workman and Ketchum to sit on the state’s high court. Republican candidate Beth Walker was unopposed.

Mike Ross was unopposed in his race to return to the State Senate. He will face Republican Clark Barnes in November.

In the House of Delegates race, Bill Proudfoot led the ticket here with 1410 votes, while fellow incumbent Bill Hartman received 960 votes. Challengers Margaret Beckwith and Thomas Ditty trailed with 607 and 411 votes, respectively. The incumbents took the win in Randolph County also. No Republicans filed.

The First Division Circuit Judge’s race went to incumbent Joseph Pomponio by a smaller margin, 986 to Steve Hunter’s 957 votes. Pomponio defeated Hunter in Greenbrier County, as well. In the Second Division, Chief Judge Jim Rowe was unopposed. Republicans Jesse Guills was unopposed in the First Division, as was Barry Bruce in the Second Division.

Family Court Judge David Arrington was the first of the county incumbents on the ballot to succumb to the winds of change. Arrington got 1004 votes, while challenger Jeffrey Hall got 1061 votes. Hall defeated Arrington in Webster County to get the judge’s seat. No Republican candidate filed.

The county commission race continued the trend. Incumbent James Carpenter fell to challenger David Fleming by a margin of 474 votes. Carpenter received 802 votes, while Fleming pulled in 1276 votes. Fleming will make his bid against the Republican winner, Charles Wilfong, in November. Wilfong defeated both Mulvie Grimes and Jeremy Bauserman. Wilfong got 387 votes to Grimes’ 137 and Bauserman’s 140.

In the prosecuting attorney’s race, Donna Meadows Price defeated incumbent Walt Weiford by perhaps the widest margin of the day with 1488 votes to Weiford’s 645 votes. Price will be unopposed this November.

The Democratic race for sheriff between a deputy and a former magistrate was perhaps the closest.

Chief Deputy David Walton got 1113 votes to Dosia Webb’s 972. Walton will face Republican David Jonese in November.

In the magistrate’s race, Kathy Beverage got 1315 votes and Janet Kershner-Vanover, a former magistrate, got 1158 votes. Beverage and Kershner-Vanover defeated Shawn Gilmore with 689 votes and Sheriff Bob Alkire with 299 votes. No Republican filed to run for magistrate this fall.

As usual, Surveyor William Dilley led the entire Democratic ticket with 1899 votes.

Former teacher Margaret Worth won a seat from the Central District on the Board of Education, defeating incumbent Jesse Groseclose by nearly 400 votes, 1700 to 1335. Northern District candidate and BOE president Kenneth Vance will return to office with 1314 votes to challenger Henry Jaeger’s 435 votes.

The Pocahontas Times will publish precinct-by-precint returns next week. The county commission will canvass the votes Friday.