Perhaps spurred by the avalanche of political advertising for the past three weeks, Fayette County voters turned out in unusually high numbers for a Tuesday runoff election to give a nearly 7-to-3 winning margin to incumbent Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss over Democrat Jim Martin.

Nearly complete returns for Fayette show Chambliss with 25,875 votes (69.2 percent) to Martin’s 11,519 (30.8 percent).

Statewide, with more than 97 percent of all precincts reporting, Chambliss overwhelmed Martin 1.2 million votes to 905,000, or 57 percent to 43 percent.

Striking for a runoff election, the Fayette voter turnout was 52.38 percent. Of the 71,512 registered Fayette voters, 37,460 cast ballots in the three weeks leading up to the Dec. 2 runoff.

In Fayette, as across the state, Republican Lauren McDonald swamped Democrat Jim Powell for a vacant slot on the Georgia Public Service Commission.

In Fayette, McDonald got 68 percent, while Powell received 32 percent.

For the Ga. Court of Appeals, Mike Sheffield edged Sara Doyle 50.2 percent to 49.71 percent in Fayette, but that trend was reversed statewide, with Doyle winning 52 percent to 48 percent.