It didn’t take long for Kent Leonhardt’s bid for a second term as Commissioner of Agriculture to take root across West Virginia on Tuesday night.
Leonhardt, 66, a retired U.S. Marine lieutenant colonel and Republican, was outpacing challenger Bob Beach 305,631 votes to 175,110, as of 9:30 p.m., with 30% of the state’s precincts reporting. Numbers are unofficial.
He said he wanted to continue his ongoing mission of making agriculture programs more accessible in the Mountain State — for residents and his fellow military veterans, in particular.
Such programs, Leonhardt said, mean bushels of West Virginia-grown products to regional markets.
Streamlining paperwork and plowing through bureaucracies, the farmer and military officer said, make netting the objective that much easier.
Meanwhile, Beach, the son of a late lawmaker and high school agriculture sciences teacher, initially outpaced the incumbent by as many as 5,000 votes in the initial flow of returns after polls closed at 7:30 p.m.
The 61-year-old Democrat and Monongalia County senator who also served in the House of Delegates said Leonhardt had sewn seeds of discontent among state farmers.
He ran on a pledge to provide more resources and better communication to those working the soil in the Mountain State.
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