There’s a new member of Beaufort County Council. Here’s who won, unofficial results show
In the race for Mike Covert’s vacant District 7 seat on Beaufort County Council, Republican Logan Cunningham appears to have handily defeated his Democratic challenger, Jodie Srutek, early Wednesday election results indicate.
Although SCVotes.org shows 11 of the 12 precincts with results, mail-in absentee ballots are still being counted in Beaufort County, said Marie Smalls, director of Beaufort County’s Board of Elections and Voter Registration. That means some election results may change when those ballots are recorded.
According to the results, Cunningham received 67.99% of the vote while Srutek got 31.95%.
The District 7 seat — which represents the Buckwalter, Pritchardville and Rose Hill portions of Bluffton — was the only contested Beaufort County Council race on the ballot this year.
Called about the results early Wednesday, Cunningham said he “definitely thought we were going to win.”
“We’ve just got to get to work and open the lines of communication,” he said. “We have to communicate with the people, and council has to be transparent.”
In an early Wednesday statement to The Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette, Srutek said her campaign was “never about me or my personal ambitions, but about the work.”
“The election has come to an end, but I will continue to show up for my community and advocate for positive change,” the statement said. “I am still working at this late hour to ensure that every vote cast in Beaufort County is counted, and I want to express my gratitude to those who participated in this historic election.”
County Council members Gerald Dawson (District 1), York Glover (District 3) and Brian Flewelling (District 5) were all re-elected with no opposition.
A small write-in campaign from a group of anti-mask activists to unseat Democrats Dawson and Glover was unsuccessful, as all three of the incumbents received over 90% of the vote.
Covert’s seat was left vacant after he challenged Bill Herbkersman in the primary for his S.C. House of Representatives seat.
Cunningham, a former fifth-grade teacher at Hilton Head Island School for the Creative Arts and manager at Station 300, previously said the “ramifications” of the COVID-19 pandemic represented the biggest issue facing his constituents.
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He said the next priority is to “re-open the economy and to limit the financial effects of COVID-19.”
Over the past year, the County Council has been hampered by strong personalities, power grabs and an overwhelming desire to look good in the public’s eye despite multiple controversies, mistakes, budget errors and lawsuits.
Both candidates ran on platforms saying they would increase the public’s trust in local government.
Cunningham graduated from Hilton Head Christian Academy in 2012 and attended the University of South Carolina Beaufort.
Srutek, of Bluffton, is a travel adviser and co-founder of STANDforStudents.
This story was originally published November 4, 2020 at 12:34 AM.
