If Bruce Nichols holds on to beat Kody Justus for the Republican nomination for a seat on the Baker County Board of Commissioners, he’ll have voters in and around Haines to thank.

And to a lesser but still significant extent, voters in the central and western parts of Baker Valley.

The Haines and Pocahontas/Wingville precincts, to use their official electoral titles, gave Nichols his biggest margins over Justus.

Nichols’ advantage in those two precincts was 136 votes — 85 in Haines, 51 in Wingville.

Justus won a plurality of votes in nine of the county’s 17 precincts, but his margin in those areas doesn’t seem to be enough to overcome Nichols’ success in Haines and Pocahontas/Wingville.

As of this morning, Nichols had a 38-vote lead over Justus overall.

This has largely to do with the relatively small number of voters in many of the precincts Justus won.

His biggest advantage was in Eagle Valley, but he gained just 34 votes on Nichols there.

The second-best precinct for Justus was Keating, which includes his family’s ranch. Justus outpolled Nichols by 30 votes there.

But Nichols, in addition to his much bigger gains in Haines and Pocahontas/Wingville, posted margins larger than 30 votes in two other precincts — South Baker (precinct 4), 32 votes; and East Baker (precinct 5), 31 votes.

Some of Justus’ other precinct wins didn’t give him much of a boost — 3 votes (24 to 21) in Unity, for instance, and 13 votes (28 to 15) in Huntington.

Nichols’ 38-vote lead doesn’t include about 18 ballots that could still be counted if the voters who submitted them rectify issues with the signature. Although County Clerk Cindy Carpenter said she doesn’t expect the margin will be close enough to warrant a mandatory recount, a voter or political party could request, and pay for, a recount.

See more in the Friday, May 20, issue of the Baker City Herald.