The race for House District 20 pitted Republican Rick Catlin against Democrat Tom Gale. Tuesday night, Catlin claimed an overwhelming victory, receiving 64-percent of the vote to Gale’s 36-percent. The defeat was a let-down—but not a surprise—to the democratic candidate.
Tom Gale says he knew that securing a seat in the State House of Representatives would be a long shot. Running his campaign on a budget of a few thousand dollars made promoting his platform to potential constituents a challenge. But one issue that pushed Gale to continue his campaign was, he says, a lack of transparency in the General Assembly.
“People are not as informed as I think they need to be in order to hold their leaders accountable. I think there’s a lot of things that have been done behind closed doors and midnight sessions. I think anything that’s worth doing is worth doing in the light of day.”
Democrat Susi Hamilton claimed the seat in House District 18 with nearly sixty-seven percent of the vote, defeating Louis Harmati. Republican Ted Davis kept his seat in the 19th district, securing nearly twenty percentage points over opponent Emily Swearingen.