Precinct results from yesterday’s county primary elections contain an interesting trend in the race for County Trustee. Voters in the “mountain towns” typically preferred incumbent Carl Levi, while those in the valley tended towards Commissioner Bill Hullander.

Hullander won by a wide margin, and the breakdown is not absolute. (See Walden, which refuses to go along with neighboring Signal Mountain on much of anything — but it was close.)

But Levi won in both Signal Mountain precincts, Lookout Mountain 1, Missionary Ridge, Ridgeside, and the altitude-challenged but demographically similar Riverview and North Chattanooga 1, while Hullander won the rest, for the most part.

Hullander’s most defining advantage was, of course, his being a popular commissioner in his home district, and in the area surrounding his business: he won big in Harrison, Apison, Ooltewah, Collegedale, and East Brainerd, where it seems clear that people turned out specifically to vote for him.

Getting supporters to the polls is the key, especially in elections with such low turnout. Fewer than one in ten registered voters cast ballots in this election.