Walker defeats five rivals for state Senate

Houston County's Larry Walker III will go to Atlanta in January after beating five other Republicans for a state Senate seat.

Walker got 52 percent of the votes across Senate District 20, which covers most of Houston plus all of Bleckley, Laurens and Pulaski counties.

He dispatched Vivian Childs, Brooks Keisler, Jon Martin, James Pettis and Mike Reece. None took more than 19 percent of the vote.

"I think people in the district recognized that I have the ability to be an effective leader in the Senate and liked my message of using some Middle Georgia common sense," said Walker, as the last votes were being counted Tuesday night.

Walker campaigned on promises to cut red tape, trim taxes and protect Robins Air Force Base. He said the win was due to hard work from family, friends and supporters.

In his first elected office, he will fill the roughly one year left in the term of former state Sen. Ross Tolleson, R-Perry. Tolleson announced his retirement in October due to an early onset Alzheimer's disease diagnosis.

The home court advantage may have helped Walker, an insurance agency owner. He collected the endorsements of Tolleson and of former Gov. Sonny Perdue. The population of the district is concentrated in Houston, as were his voters, and his name is familiar there. He shares it with his father, former state House Majority Leader Larry Walker Jr.

Larry Walker III spent much of the summer making himself known to voters in an August special election for a Houston County state House seat. He lost to new state Rep. Shaw Blackmon, R-Bonaire, though the two campaigned on similar platforms.

Walker raised about $100,000 for the Senate campaign through Nov. 16, according the latest spending report due to the state. Of the other candidates who filed those reports as of election day -- Keisler, Pettis and Reece -- all depended heavily on personal loans to their campaigns and none had a war chest of more than $29,000.

This story was originally published December 1, 2015 at 10:26 PM with the headline "Walker defeats five rivals for state Senate ."