Mike Arledge will be the new Lowndes County sheriff.
Unofficial numbers show Arledge, a Republican, defeated Democrat Anthony Nelson Tuesday to win the sheriff’s race. Arledge earned 61.3 percent, with 10,546 votes, and Nelson earned 38.5 percent, with 6,623 votes.
“We’ve been working hard all year,” Arledge said after the news spread that he had won.
Arledge said he and his campaign party, which set up post at the Holiday Inn on Highway 45 North, heard the unofficial news at around 9:30 p.m.
“We got some of the numbers pretty early because we had people at the polling places,” he said, noting the win was “pretty much what we expected.”
“You kind of get a feel about how precincts are going to vote,” said Arledge, who is excited about taking over the sheriff’s department.
Nelson, on the other hand, said he was a little disappointed.
Nelson, who lost the Democratic primary election to Interim Columbus Police Chief Selvain McQueen, stepped back in as the Democratic nominee when McQueen dropped out due to a possible Hatch Act violation.
“If we could’ve done it straight through, I think we could’ve done better,” he said.
Nelson could not put a finger on one specific thing from the campaign that he thinks he could have done better, but he did thank the voters and congratulate all winners from the election.
Arledge will replace Butch Howard, who is retiring after his third term as sheriff.
Arledge has more than 31 years of law enforcement experience; he worked as a Mississippi highway patrolman and in the Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics and Mississippi Bureau of Investigation before serving two terms as justice court judge.
Nelson, current Lowndes County Juvenile Detention Center administrator, is a part-time deputy sheriff. He has more than 23 years of law enforcement experience and worked in the Lowndes County sheriff’s patrol and investigation divisions.
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