By Brandon Moseley
Alabama Political Reporter
Tuesday, April 12, north Alabama voters went to the polls and Incumbent Jeff Newman (R) held on to his State school board seat with 62.1 percent of the votes cast to Bonner’s 37.1 percent.
Turnout was terrible in District 7 where as of press time only 11,087 votes had been cast in the 12 county district.
In the week before the runoff the powerful Business Council of Alabama (BCA) pumped over $50,000 into Newman’s campaign, through their PROGRESS PAC. The Alabama Farmer’s Federation PAC contributed another $10,000.
Jeff Newman has more than three decades of experience in education, Newman most recently retired as superintendent of education of the Lamar County School System. Prior to his service as superintendent, he served as an administrator of federal programs, a career technical principal and director, a high school assistant principal, and an agribusiness teacher.
Bonner won well over 45 percent of the Republican Primary vote and narrowly missed winning the largely rural 12 county northwest Alabama State school board district outright. Bonner however failed to get his voters to return the polls in sufficient numbers to be competitive in the runoff.
While Newman won a convincing victory, the other BCA endorsed candidate lost his bid for re-election. Former principal Jackie Zeigler defeated Matthew Brown in District one.
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