Results are mostly in for Lexington County’s competitive races in the Nov. 8 general election.

The AP has called the race for the U.S. House of Representatives seat representing the county, S.C. District 2, for long-standing incumbent Joe Wilson. According to the latest unofficial results posted at scvotes.gov as of 9:43 p.m., the Republican has 60.09% of the vote to Democrat challenger Judd Larkins' 38.77% with one of the five counties involved in the race reporting and 68,189 votes counted.

The 1% Capital Project Sales Tax to fund road improvements in Lexington County across the next eight years was on the ballot for voters to approve or disapprove. They disapproved.

With 100% of precincts reporting, 54.65% of voters said no compared to the 45.35% who said yes to the penny tax.

The tax came closer to passing than a similar ballot initiative for Lexington County did in 2014, when nearly 70% of voters  rejected it.

The three competitive school board races in Lexington County were tight.

With 100% of precincts reporting, Beth Shealy, Chris Rice and Katie McCown lead in the race for three at-large seats up on the Lexington County School District 1 Board of Trustees with 19.22%, 15.01%, and 10.84% of the vote, respectively.

Candidates Harriet Coker ended with 10.45%, Nicholas Pizzuti with 8.79%, Richard Gehling with 8.06%, Dana Homesley with 7.29%, Aaron Granade with 6.49%, Mary Price with 6.14% Andrea Nazarenko with 6%, and Rhys Sage with 1.45%.

The gap between McCown (10,967 votes) and Coker (10,570) is 397 votes out of a total of 101,195 ballots cast in the race.

With 100% of precincts reporting, there's been a change in the totals for Lexington County School District 2. Current Board Chair Christina Rucker, current Board Member Linda Alford-Wooten and former Board Member Kevin Key lead in the race for three at-large seats on the Lexington County School District 2 board with 28.23%, 27.08% and 22.10%, respectively.

Chuck Hightower ended with 22.08%. The gap between Hightower (6,158 votes) and Key (6,164) is six votes out of a total of 27,887 ballots cast in the race.

With 100% of precincts reporting, there's been a change in the totals for Lexington-Richland School District 5. Elizabeth Barnhardt and Mike Satterfield lead in the race for two Lexington County seats on the Lexington-Richland School District 5 board with 23.64% and 23.32%, respectively.

Incumbent Ken Loveless ended with 23.27%, ahead of Scott Herring with 18.2% and Renard Green with 11.22%.

The gap between Satterfield (7,376 votes) and Loveless (7,362) is 14 votes out of a total 31,635 ballots cast in the race. 

The margins in these three Lexington County school board races are close enough that Lenice Shoemaker, the county's registration and elections director, told the Chronicle the necessity of recounts is being considered. By state law, a recount is required if the margin is 1% or less.

With 100% of precincts reporting, Kimberly Snipes (29.49%) and Kevin Skully (28.83%) beat current Lexington-Richland 5 Board Members Nikki Gardner (21.75%) and Tifani Moore (18.65%) in the race for two Richland County seats on the board.

With 100% of precincts reporting, Republican candidate Jay Kilmartin won the District 85 state House race to replace the retiring Chip Huggins, totaling 75.53% of the vote to Libertarian challenger John Davis' 23.82%.

With 100% of precincts reporting, Republican state Rep. RJ May won his race to keep representing District 88 70.08% to 29.81% over Democrat challenger Daniel Shrief.

With all three counties involved reporting (and with 100% of precints in Lexington County reporting), Democrat state Rep. Russell Ott won re-election in District 93 against Republican challenger Jim Ulmer 60.76% to 39.12%.

The two biggest statewide races have been called by the AP, with Republican Gov. Henry McMaster declared the winner over Democrat challenger and former Rep. Joe Cunningham (McMaster led 56.34% to 42.5% with 19 counties reporting) and Republican Sen. Tim Scott declared the winner over Democrat challenger and state Rep. Krystle Matthews (Scott led 60.49% to 39.42% with 19 counties reporting).

Another high-profile statewide race has one candidate with a big lead as Republican Ellen Weaver (55.13%) has maintained a gap between her and Democrat Lisa Ellis (40.03%) in the race to replace outgoing State Superintendent of Education Molly Spearman with all but three counties reporting.

Turnout for the election was strong, with 100,352 of 195,197 (51.41%) registered voters in Lexington County casting ballots, part of a statewide turnout of 1,718,626 (50.86%).

[Online copy corrected.]

"I was really surprised. I thought we caught the majority of people through early voting, but we had a huge turnout for people coming to the polls," Shoemaker, the county's registration and elections director, said. "And a lot of people had address changes that needed to be done. I was really surprised by the volume of address changes. We had a really, really good turnout."

In the first general election that allowed for excuse-free early voting in South Carolina, voters, both statewide and in the county, took advantage. 560,622 people voted early in the Palmetto State, with 29,315 of them doing so in Lexington County.

Many races were decided by the end of the June primaries.

Running unopposed for the state House of Representatives in districts that touch the county were: Cal Forrest (District 39), Joe White (District 40), Christ Wooten (District 69), Nathan Ballentine (District 71), Bill Taylor (District 86), Paula Rawl Calhoon (District 87), Micah Caskey (District 89) and Ryan McCabe (District 96).

On school boards, Frances Bouknight and Cheryl Burgess ran unopposed in Lexington County District 3, while incumbents Brad Frick and Zachary Smith and new candidate Quincy Sutton were the only people seeking three seats in Lexington County District 4.

Lexington County Council Members Larry Bringham, Beth Carigg, Glen Conwell and Todd Cullum all ran unopposed for re-election.