Sanford Bishop defeats Leesburg optician for second time in 2nd District race
For the second time in two years, U.S. Rep. Sanford Bishop turned back a challenge from Leesburg optician Greg Duke in the 2nd Congressional District race.
Unofficial totals from all 29 counties show Bishop outpolled Duke, a Republican, with 148,033 or 61 percent of the vote to 93,909 or 39 percent. The vote margin for Bishop, a Democrat, was two percentage points higher this year over his winning margin in 2014.
Bishop said he’s pleased with the outcome on a night the election for president went to Republican Donald Trump. “I got a lot of comments as I was in the district that people were very pleased with my service and they felt that I’ve given a good account for my stewardship,” he said. “Many of them would see me and said we think your election is not going to be a problem at all. We are not sure about the presidential.”
Bishop, 69, said it made him feel good about performing a service that was appreciated or recognized by both Democrats and Republicans. “It just caused me to just renew my commitment to continue working on their behalf,” he said.
With the new leadership in the White House, Bishop hopes he and other members of Congress can come together and really focus on issues that are real concerns for American people regardless of party or partisanship. “I hope we can be bipartisan as we look at challenges facing our country and look forward to in a bipartisan way,” he said. “Our challenges are not Republican or Democrat. They are American challenges. The solutions will be American solutions.”
Bishop assumes there will be a list of issues Trump noted during the campaign for president. Among them are building a wall on the border of Mexico, immigration reform, a number of trade issues and repeal of Obamacare or the Affordable Care Act. “More than likely, he will try to act on them,” he said.
This story was originally published November 9, 2016 at 7:18 PM with the headline "Sanford Bishop defeats Leesburg optician for second time in 2nd District race."