I've had several folks asked me how it is that Tony Aikens won but lost. They had only seen the Loudon County results. Below are the numbers from both counties.

Three candidates jumped into the race. Lenoir City mayor, Tony Aikens and Doyle Arp, both from Loudon County, and Lowell Russell from Monroe County.  With two Loudon County candidates and one from Monroe County, the simple math favored the Monroe candidate. In the end that's how it turned out.

In the two county race, Russell came out on top with Aikens coming in second and Arp a distant third. In this race, Arp was the spoiler with no chance to win but pulled just enough Loudon County votes to tip the race to Monroe County.

This will be the first time the 21st district representative has not been from Loudon County for as far back as anybody can remember. 

This is not to take away from Mr. Russell's victory, he won it fair and square and even got more voted in Loudon County than Arp did. I suspect Mr. Russell will do his best to represent Loudon County as well as Monroe County.

We sure hope he does.