Columbus area lost key state leader. Here are the special election results to succeed him

Mark Rice
·2 min read

The special election to replace Richard Smith in the Georgia House and represent the Columbus area’s District 139 will be decided in overtime.

With all 10 of the district’s precincts tallied Tuesday night, Republican Sean Knox has the most votes with 1,045, but he received 42.57% of the votes — not a majority — so he and the second-place candidate, fellow Republican Carmen Rice (1,033 votes, 42.08%), will compete in a runoff May 7, according to results posted online by the Georgia Secretary of State’s office.

Robert Mallard, an independent, and Donald Moeller, also a Republican, trailed the field with 237 and 140 votes, respectively.

Smith was a key leader for the Columbus area in the state legislature, serving in the Georgia House since 2005 and as chairman of the House Rules Committee since 2020. So when he died from the flu Jan. 30 at age 78, a big void was left in the local delegation.

The first step in filling that vacancy concluded Tuesday night, when the final results of the special election to succeed Smith were released by the secretary of state’s office.

District 139 covers parts of Muscogee and Harris counties, comprising these voting precincts:

  • Britt David, Chattahoochee, Epworth, Moon, St. Andrew, St. Paul and St. Peter in Muscogee County.

  • Cataula, Ellerslie and Waverly Hall in Harris County.

These were the candidates on the District 139 special election ballot:

  • Sean Knox, Republican, president of Knox Pest Control in Columbus.

  • Robert Mallard, independent, founding member and associate broker with Inheritance Realty Group in Columbus until November. Now, co-founder and beekeeper with Foundation Honey Company in Columbus.

  • Donald Moeller, Republican, oral and maxillofacial surgeon in Columbus.

  • Carmen Rice (not related to this reporter), Republican, human resources professional in Columbus, first female Muscogee County GOP chair.

Because this was a special election to fill a vacated seat, no primary election preceded it. So any district resident could have qualified for the ballot, regardless of party affiliation, but no Democrat qualified to run for this seat, which is in a predominantly Republican area.

The winner of this special election immediately becomes the Georgia House District 139 representative and fills the remaining portion of Smith’s two-year term, which expires at the end of this year.

Knox, Moeller and Rice also qualified as Republicans for the May 21 primary. The winner of that race will compete in the Nov. 5 general election for the full two-year term against Mallard, who is an independent and doesn’t need to run in the primary, and Carl Sprayberry, a Columbus chef, who is the only Democrat to qualify to campaign for this seat.