Aiken County Sheriff Republican Primary Race

Karlton Clay and Shawn Cabbagestalk

2 hours ago

AIKEN COUNTY, SC (WJBF) – The race for Aiken County's next sheriff continues as voters went to the polls Tuesday to cast ballots in the Republican primary.

As of 10:53 p.m., with 100% of precincts reporting, in unofficial election results, Marty Sawyer held 76.88% of the vote while Stuart Prettel held 15.12% and Ed Wilson held 8%.

Longtime Sheriff Michael Hunt has announced he will retire.

We spoke with Marty Sawyer, Republican candidate in the Aiken County sheriff's primary. Here's what he had to say:

So let's talk about this message. What do you think resonated with Aiken County voters about your campaign?

Well, I think it starts with my experience. I think I'm the one who's active in law enforcement and knows what's going on in law enforcement right now. And I think for 34 and a half years, I've done a good job and treated people well. And I think it paid off for me tonight. My friends and people that I've dealt with over the years have spread the word and, you know, just to be honest and, uh, a man of integrity and honor, I think we're there.

We've talked about some of the issues that are of great concern to some people here. Can you address some of these issues and how do you plan to resolve them?

“Well, wherever I've done drugs, that's the problem. Um, we have resources here in Aiken County that we need to use, and we're not going to stop drugs. They are, they will never be stopped. But I think we can slow them down a little bit and I'm not going to talk about it on camera because yeah. You know, some things, of course. Yeah. They also watch TV. Mm-Hmm. uh recruitment and retention is an important thing that we need to do, but as I told you earlier, the safety of the citizens of Aiken County is my main goal, but my priority will be that the employees of the office of the sheriff know that I care. for them, I'm going to support them, and the best product that we can produce, the best product that the citizens of Aiken County get when they call for service.

I think something great that you mentioned before is you want to have a citizen advisory council.

“Yes. I would like to see a citizen advisory council made up of citizens from across the county to meet either once a month or once a quarter to talk about issues on each end of the county and in every small town in the county and , and see what their similarities are, what a city or a small region is doing to solve the problem or doing to fix it.

So it's not over, you still have one race left. It will be in November. So what are you going to do between now and November?

“I took a week off and I'm going to the beach. Mm-Hmm. . And then I'll come back and meet with our team, uh, and we'll start putting together a game plan for November like we did for this election. And, uh, I think we'll see the same results in November. All right.”

The winner of the Republican primary will face Democrat Lucas Grant in the November general election.