Gibson celebrates primary election victory over Bailey

J.W. Gibson's supporters gathered and watched the good news trickle in Tuesday night after the polls closed.

Gibson beat incumbent Walter Bailey by 8%. Bailey was on the ticket even though he was restricted by term limits from serving again. Gibson himself took heat from some in the Democratic party over his past affiliations with the local Republican party. But Tuesday night, none of that seemed to make much of a difference.

"The very first numbers that we saw coming in were the early voting and absentee voting and it was close at that point so we were excited even then," Gibson said. "Understanding that during that time period there was a lot of media flip-flop and confusion going on about whether I was allowed to run and whether I was a bona fide Democrat. So we were extremely close from the early voting and the absentee so we were pretty excited about that."

Gibson acknowledged that although there is no other challenger in the general election, it's still possible someone might try to write-in another candidate in August.