Pettyjohn wins 19th Senate District seat

Republican Brian Pettyjohn beamed after decisively winning the race for the 19th Senate District. It was a short race for Pettyjohn – only 37 days.

“I went from a write-in, to people questioning what my motives were, to one of my opponents suspending his campaign and dropping out,” he said.

The former Georgetown mayor attributes his win to people who worked for him in this and previous elections.

“They really stepped up to the plate. They were already committed to other candidates but took whatever spare time they had, helped me with my campaign and made it happen,” he said.

Pettyjohn tallied 9,817 votes, defeating Democrat Jane Hovington, who garnered 6,605 votes, giving Pettyjohn 59.8 percent of the vote to Hovington's 40.2.

He attributes his win to people who worked with him in this and previous elections.

Pettyjohn said he already has relationships in Dover because of his time as mayor.

“I won’t have to ramp-up too much because I have good contact with people in the General Assembly. I just have to get up to speed on some of the issues,” he said.

Because he ran a short campaign, Pettyjohn said he didn’t have much of an opportunity to go door to door to talk to constituents.

“I’ll be getting feedback from people in the district to find out their specific issues and start to address them,” he said. But before he gets to work, he’s taking the family on vacation.

“I’m going to Disney next week,” said Pettyjohn said about the Florida trip he, wife Kelly and Mollie, their 8-year-old daughter, have been planning for a year.

“When I get back it’s really going to be about getting a dialogue going with different departments to find out what’s going on,” he said