I thought he was in trouble, but I still thought he had enough goodwill to pull it out. I always voted for Sheriff Hale. JCSO does an excellent job where I live. Hope that doesn't change, but signs are that it very well may.

What got me about Hale is that I saw VERY LITTLE campaign signage for him around where I live. My GOP State Rep had stuff up EVERYWHERE, and he was easily re-elected, but obviously he didn't have to run Countywide. I haven't looked at the ballot numbers which should be up by now, but I imagine straight-ticket Dem voting really hurt the county in the most recent election.

Hell, quite a few races in the Bessemer Cutoff didn't even have a Republican opponent. Either the person was running unopposed, or the opponent was some kind of independent Dem type. I always look up every candidate I vote for in-depth. I checked Pettway out a few days before the election, and like others here I noticed he "planned" to do things like SROs, etc that Hale had already done or was planning to do.

The biggest issue for me are judges. We've had some joke judges over the past 10 years - - almost all Dem, but there have been a couple of bad Republican judges as well. Including the incompetent lady who kept locking people up in divorce court when they didn't appear for a last minute subpoena (served the night before and shit like that).

There is one male Dem Judge in Jeffco that I know that is fairly decent. He's pretty tough on crime and has been pretty damn good with a couple of capital murder cases i saw he was assigned. That said, the vast majority are either incompetent, unqualified, or are way too soft.

We'll see what happens. I'm certainly worried that Sheriff Hale lost. Perhaps there was nothing he could do, but I just don't get his lack of campaigning in my area. He certainly won my polling place, but I'm sure there were voters who he didn't get because they didn't fill out the entire ballot and didn't vote a straight ticket. You can't really vote a straight ticket in Jeffco anyway because sometimes you have to pick between two Dems and go with the lesser of two evils.

I'm not leaving Jeffco, though. Been here too long. The sewer didn't break me and the consent decrees haven't broken me, but I'm about fed up with my area's stupidity that allowed Bessemer to control way too much in this area and get all of our tax dollars. All the old fuckers that refused incorporation out here either moved or died, but can't put the genie back into the bottle.

Left JeffCo 20yrs ago for Shelby.  Seen lots of changes before leaving and kept up with most of the major events over the years.  It really went down hill fast and seems to be spreading into more areas.  FOP Range is about the only thing left over there that I frequent.