Wright wins his commission primary, says county can ‘move forward’ with Calkins out
Colten Wright, who has served as district 5 commissioner for the past four years, won his Republican primary election Tuesday over Mike Priest, a former law enforcement officer.
Wright received 14,935 votes (56.60% of the total vote) while his opponent, Priest, received 11,454 votes (43.40% of the total vote). Wright will face write-in Ronald Martonick in November’s general election, but there is no democrat in opposition.
“Thank you for having faith in me, thank you for letting me serve you for four years and for having enough faith in me to serve for another four,” Wright said. “It’s exciting. It’s a big opportunity to help move the county forward, and I’m looking forward to the challenge and rising to the occasion.”
According to Wright, the campaign was hard fought, with lots of attack ads coming his way from a political action committee (PAC) called The America First Alliance PAC.
Wright indicated that the attacks largely came from Commissioner James Calkins after Wright had met with Calkins’ primary opponents in this year’s district 3 commission race, Jerry Couey and Rhett Rowell.
“I know that created some tension between me and the board, and that’s why I wound up with an opponent in my race,” Wright said. “I think the truth has prevailed today. I’m glad the majority of Santa Rosa residents saw through the B.S.”
Wright spent election night at a watch party with Rowell in Pace. Rowell won his race over Calkins and Couey and, assuming a write-in doesn’t pull an all-time stunner in November, will join Wright on the dais at Board of County Commissioners meetings. According to Wright, he didn’t endorse Rowell but looks forward to working with him.
“Hopefully we can be professional, and we can move forward, do the work of the county,” Wright said. “I look forward to being rid of the chaos, the chaos creators, the cancer that was upon us. I’m glad we’ll be able to take that cancer, cut it out and move forward. I think Santa Rosa County will be better for it.”
Priest said he was not upset by the results, considering there was a small margin of defeat.
“The fact that I only needed 8 percentage points more to win tells you how Santa Rosa County really feels,” Priest said. “I can’t complain at all. Congratulations to him, he won fair and square against somebody who has never done this before. I’ll be back in four years.”
Priest said he definitely plans to run again, and he knows he could’ve done more to campaign. He said he didn’t attend two debates because he wanted to keep his nose clean and stay out of the drama.
“I’m proud of myself. I’ve received, I can’t count how many phone calls and text messages saying how proud my friends are of me, and I take that to heart,” Priest said. “That means a lot to me.”