Park County general election results

The below post is an archive of the Tribune's live coverage throughout election night.

11:17 Well, it looks like I missed the boat: despite early returns, the Cynthia Lummis-Gary Trauner contest just wasn't that close. Lummis took the race by 20,000 votes or so. Apologies for the unnecessary hype. Anyway, that's the end of this blogging, but the election breakdown continues in Thursday's Powell Tribune. We'll have stories on pretty much everything that happened tonight and what it means for you. Thanks for following along.

10:01 OK! Looks like we're pretty much final here. Looks like my below recap is holding true. If you want to look at the numbers, check them out at the county's site here. I think I'm calling it a night, though I may pop back on when I get home. Here's the most important number, in my opinion: Lummis carried Park County by 4,919 votes. According to the Secretary of State's web site right now, she's only up by 2,400 votes or so at the moment. Park County could give her perhaps a decisive boost.

9:42 Let's just do a recap:
-McCain handily wins Park County and Wyoming, but loses in the United States.

-John Barrasso and Mike Enzi win handily here and across the state.

-Cynthia Lummis trounced Gary Trauner here by more than 3,000 votes, but golly gee is it tight statewide.

-Scott Mangold looks like he's reclaiming his seat as Powell mayor.

-Floyd Young, Don Hillman, Jim Hillberry are winners of city council seats.

-Dave Bonner handily overcame a write-in campaign by Pat Slater for House District 25.

-Nancy Tia Brown looks to be the new Cody mayor.

-Amendment A, which modernizes Wyoming's oath of office, was approved by 75 percent of Park County voters. Amendment B, however, which changes how citizens can get initiatives and referenda on the ballots (arguably making it harder) only received 48 percent support. That means it failed in Park County.

-District Court Judge Steven Cranfill apparently received the support of a majority of voters to retain his seat on the bench.

-In Cody, voters said no to giving the Cody Conservation District a one mill levy from property taxes.

Phew.

9:41 Just had a glitch that deleted what I had spent the last 10 minutes writing. Let's try that again.

9:18 Some race numbers with like 93 percent in. Very close to being done.

U.S. House
Cynthia Lummis: 6,655 votes (62 percent)
Gary Trauner: 3,239 votes (30 percent)

With the state race tight, that 3,400 vote difference could prove definitive. Park County's results aren't in yet.

House District 25
Dave Bonner: 2,759 votes (76 percent)
Write-ins: 396 votes (11 percent) NOTE: May not all be for write-in candidate Pat Slater

Powell mayor
Scott Mangold: 1,412 (64 percent)
Tim Sapp: 645 (29 percent)

Cody mayor
Nancy Tia Brown: 1,984 (57%)
Paul Rankin: 1,253 (36%)

Powell Hospital District:
Mark Kitchen: 2,526 (20%)
Kay Carlson: 2,270 (18%)
Deb Kleinfeldt: 2,200 (17%)
Doug Nissen: 1,681 (13%)

Powell City Council Ward 1
Jim Hillberry: 52%
Shea Reel: 32%

Powell City Council Ward 2
Mark Senn 22%
Floyd Young 68%

Powell City Council Ward 3
Don Hillman 57%
John Sides 31%

9:12 Here comes more numbers. 93 percent of precincts in. Don Hillman looks to have taken Powell City Council seat over John Sides. I'll start posting some numbers. And geez is that Trauner-Lummis race looking tight statewide. But there's still a lot of votes out there. Check it here.

9:03 We're almost there. 90 percent or so of the county's vote is in the books. McCain and Lummis are still holding strong (as are Barrasso and Enzi). Locally, Mayor Mangold, Jim Hillberry, Floyd Young are looking good. Still waiting on council race in ward 3 (Don Hillman and John Sides). Doug Nissen still trails in his bid to keep his Powell Hospital board seat, looks like Deb Kleinfeldt will be taking a seat there. Nancy Tia Brown looks to have all but locked up her spot as Cody mayor, too.

Just heard that national media called the race for Obama. State race between Trauner and Lummis looking tight. It sure isn't here.

8:52 We've got Powell numbers. 22 of 29 precincts are in. That's around three quarters of the county's voters. Looking good for Scott Mangold in the mayoral race and Jim Hillberry in Ward 1. Doug Nissen looks to be in real trouble in his bid for keeping his seat on the Powell Valley Hospital Board. The write-in votes for Pat Slater look like they will fall far short of beating Dave Bonner for House District 25.

Mangold: 468 votes (64 percent)
Tim Sapp: 192 votes (26 percent)

Hillberry: 381 (52 percent)
Shea Reel: 232 (32 percent)

Wards 2 and 3 not in yet.

Powell Hospital Board:
Mark Kitchen: 1,124 (19 percent)
Kay Carlson: 1,008 (17 percent)
Deb Kleinfeldt: 994 (17 percent)
Douglas V. Nissen: 669 (12 percent)

Dave Bonner: 1,124 votes (75 percent)
Write-in: 173 votes (12 percent) PLEASE NOTE: Write-in votes are not necessarily just for Slater

McCain: 6,243 (74 percent)
Obama: 1,976 (23 percent)

8:51 New results, coming in.

8:47 Whoops, slight mix-up with print-outs. 17 of 29 precincts are up over on the county's page. I'll try to track those down, but until then, you can check over there. A total of 4,217 absentee ballots have been received just so far, 3,278 was the previous record. Just heard from Clerk Kelly Jensen that they're hoping to wrap things up by 10:30 p.m. "After that, we'll get cranky," she said to the long-suffering janitorial staff.

8:38 Everything's going super smooth, but no Powell votes yet. Actually, as I type this, Powell's votes have just arrived. Hopefully, we'll get some tallies for Powell sometime soon. Still trying to pin down some kind of a turnout figure.

8:29 No Powell, but some more Cody numbers with some mayor race numbers. This is with 13 precincts of the 29, some 5,526 votes in (45 percent of the county)

Cody mayoral race:
Nancy Tia Brown: 1,669 (57 percent)
Paul E. Rankin: 1,062 (36 percent)

McCain: 4,148 (75 percent)
Obama: 1,245 (23 percent)

Lummis: 3,567 (65 percent)
Trauner: 1,551 (28 percent)

As I mentioned earlier, Enzi and Barrasso have been projected to win. No reason to doubt that here.

Barrasso: 4,448 (80 percent)
Carter: 938 (17 percent)

Enzi: 4,556 (82 percent)
Rothfuss: 850 (15 percent)

8:13 Still waiting for Powell, Ralston, etc. County Information Technology head Mike Conners says, "A lot of votes. More than I've ever seen here."

Since there's a break, I'll post some hard numbers. Remember, these represent the 4,025 Cody folks that are counted so far - roughly a third of all voters.

McCain: 3,002
Obama: 927
Barr, Baldwin, Nader, and write-ins: 81

Lummis: 2,587
Trauner: 1,155
Herbert: 172

8:10 No Powell numbers are in. Some Cody numbers are, however. 9 precincts of Park County's 29 are in (31 percent). That's 4,025 votes. Lummis is thumping Trauner - 64 percent to 29 percent so far. Herbert has 4 percent. McCain has 75 percent, Obama has 23 percent. Unopposed legislators Colin Simpson, Hank Coe, and Pat Childers are doing fine, as are the only commission candidates - Dave Burke and incumbent Bucky Hall. District Judge Steven Cranfill has 60 percent of voters backing him, with 30 percent opposed.

7:52 According to the major media outlets, things are looking grim for Wyoming's McCain nation-wide, as polling had previously indicated. However, the folks who flooded all of the Tribune's staff email addresses yesterday disagree. They've predicted a landslide victory for McCain. I'll write a fuller explanation of that weirdness sometime later tonight or tomorrow. Still waiting for results. I can hear election folks feeding ballots right now.

7:45 Starting a bit earlier than expected. No results for Park County just yet. But turnout's looking more than incredible. They ran out of ballots over at NWC. Seriously.

However, despite no Park County votes, here's some media projections I heard on Wyoming Public Radio: Sen. John McCain has been projected as the Wyoming winner in the presidential race. Further, Sen. Mike Enzi and Sen. John Barrasso have been projected as winners as well.

The McCain projection came at like 7:01, like, before a single ballot had been counted. Kinda silly if you ask me.

If all goes according to plan, the Trib blog will have Park County results online before anyone else - including the county. I'll try to keep an eye on state-wide results, too.

If you have any election predictions, or a particular race you want us to focus on, weigh in down in the comments section.

My first prediction: county voter turnout will surpass Clerk Kelly Jensen's 95% prediction. Help prove me right by getting out and voting, if you haven't already. You've got til 7 p.m.

At left, first-time voter Kayla Myer registers to cast a ballot.