Riley County primary-election results
Two races were contested on the Riley County Commission Tuesday, both on the Republican side.
Moving on in District 3 on the Republican side is John Matta who defeated incumbent Ron Wells receiving 57 percent of the vote. The final tally was Matta with 1,345 to Wells’ 996 votes. Matta says he believes his past experience as a Manhattan City Commissioner will serve him well if he gets elected in November.
“Because we really need better relationships between those two groups because they really need to work together and not against each other,” he said.
Matta says that is especially true as the city and county work on competing tax initiatives over the next couple years.
“We need to get together and figure out what we both can support and try to rally the people behind that so we’re not running two competing initiatives where we could still have two taxes up there, but structured in a way where everybody knows everybody’s going to be taken care of and no one is left out in the cold,” he said.
Matta will face Democrat Kathryn Focke, who was unopposed, in the November election.
The District 2 race favors Greg McKinley over opponents Phil Mattox and incumbent Marvin Rodriguez. McKinley finished the night with 830 votes. Mattox finished second with 729 votes and Rodriguez was third with 627. Riley County has about 2,000 mail ballots yet to be counted through Friday.
The winner will oppose Democrat Fanny Fang, who was unopposed.
Pottawatomie County primary-election results
