Tanner wins reelection as Beaufort County sheriff, capturing 62% of the primary vote

Incumbent Sheriff P.J. Tanner won reelection Tuesday over “JoJo” Woodward Jr., a former captain with the agency and investigator with the 14th Circuit Solicitor’s Office, in Tuesday’s Republican primary, based on unofficial results.

With 96 of 98 precincts counted, Tanner had 15,015 votes, or 62%, to 9,208 votes, or 38%, for Woodward, according to the Beaufort County Board of Registration and Elections.

Due to a recent redistricting error in Beaufort County, there was a delay in the county results being released on the State Election Commission’s web site. Tanner was leading in the early voting with the updated results coming at 12:50 a.m. Wednesday.

The two precincts that were not released will not be included in the final count until after the canvass hearing on Thursday, the elections office said.

Tuesday evening, the Salty Dog at the Tanger 2 outlet mall in Bluffton was packed with Tanner supporters. Election results scrolled across a TV as command staff members and off-duty law enforcement, some wearing shorts as if they were at a family barbecue, awaited results.

At 12:30 a.m., just before the near-final results were released, Tanner sent 20 or so supporters home and issued a statement saying, “I wish we had results” but noted the restaurant had been reserved for 7-10 p.m.

“I feel good about the results so far,” Tanner said.

Woodward supporters gathered at Frankie Bones restaurant in Bluffton, where “America’s Got Talent” was airing on one TV and a news program on another.

By 10 p.m., Beaufort County still was not reporting election results, and some people, frustrated with the wait, began leaving Woodward’s election night party, which later moved to Station 300. The polls closed at 7 p.m. Finally, at 11:30 p.m., Woodward told his supporters to go home because full election results still had not been reported.

No Democratic candidate filed for the office, meaning Tanner likely will be the next sheriff, although someone could still file as a write-in candidate in the November general election.

When the two faced off in the 2018 race for sheriff in 2018, Tanner won with 55% of the vote. Woodward, on the other hand, had won 14 of Bluffton’s 16 precincts at that time. Following his unsuccessful bid for sheriff, Woodward went on to work as an investigator for the 14th Circuit Solicitor’s Office.

Ahead of the 2022 campaign, the candidates traded barbs over numerous issues including crime rates and qualifications and Beaufort County’s criminal case backlog..

Tanner, the sheriff since 1999, said that he was most proud of advocating for increased salaries for deputies who make approximately $50,000 annually at entry-level. Those raises took effect in January 2022.

Woodward countered that the timing of the pay increase for officers was suspicious because “it’s election time.”

Woodward campaigned on boosting the “low” morale in the Sheriff’s Office. Tanner said most of the officers supporting Woodward were fired from their posts.

One thing both men did agree on was tackling the backlog of criminal court cases in Beaufort County. During the pandemic, nearly 6,000 cases piled up as court proceedings were put to a halt. Of the 1,558 weapons-related charges filed by the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office since 2010, at least 363, or 23%, were still waiting to be heard in court, according to the latest available data from the agency. Of those crimes, 65% were committed by repeat offenders.

The county’s crime rate is another highly contested topic between the two. Woodward claims crime is on the rise though has offered no evidence to back that up while Tanner maintains that crime in the area is below the national average. Numbers from the FBI’s National Incident-Based Reporting System, which have been voluntarily submitted to the FBI by the sheriff’s office since 1991, show violent crimes have decreased in recent years. Woodward previously told an Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette reporter that he does not believe those numbers.

This story was originally published June 14, 2022 at 10:36 PM.