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Representative Debbie Wood has won the race for the District 38 seat in the Alabama House of Representatives.

As of press time, Wood totaled 3,063 total votes to challenger Micah Messer’s 2,305 overall between Chambers County and Lee County. In Chambers County, Wood secured 1,585 votes (59.99 percent of the vote), whereas Messer received 1,057 votes (40.01 percent of the vote). In Lee County, Wood received 1,478 votes (54.22 percent of the vote) and Messer had 1,248 votes (45.78 percent of the vote).

“We are very excited,” Wood said. “In fact, my camp has just kind of walked out the door because we got the final numbers. We actually went to some of the boxes and picked them up ourselves with the tape that they stick on the door so that we could confirm. But yes, we are excited.”

The first thing Wood said she would continue to work on is providing transportation for veterans in her district.

“We don’t have public transportation, and it’s very hard for our veterans to get back and forth and get to the doctor and things that they need,” she said.

Wood said she would continue to work through the Alabama House Ways and Means Education Committee to find ways to attract new teachers to the district.

“We have a real problem with individuals not wanting to go into education any longer,” she said. “I’m going to continue to work on that at the state level because it trickles down to all of us here with our children.”

Wood also said she will work on ensuring that all people, including those with disabilities, are treated fairly when it comes to receiving organ transplants.

Messer said not all results were in yet for Lee County, so he still had hope he’d win.

“We ran a really good race,” he said. “Had a lot of great supporters, a lot of great people behind me. And obviously, I’m extremely grateful for that.”

Messer said he hoped that if Wood won, she would be the best representative she could be and represent her constituents accurately.

Messer said that if he lost, he would stay politically active in District 38.

“I’m still going to stay connected, still going to be tied into politics, watching everything that’s going on [at the] local level, state level. I’m still going to be involved with talking to people with local organizations I’m a part of, the East Alabama Republican Assembly, the Republican clubs in the area. All that.”

Messer said he’d continue to try to make District 38 “the best place to be.”