Much was at stake in last Tuesday’s primary election for Wallowa County, and when the results came in, they offered their share of surprises.

Some of the races we thought would be tight more or less turned out that way, but in ways we hadn’t expected.

And other races that we thought would be tight turned out to be, well, not so much.

Maybe the biggest surprise was the runaway victory for the Republican nomination for Senate District 29, the seat that’s been held by the retiring Bill Hansell. Wallowa County Commissioner Todd Nash romped to an easy win, collecting more votes than his three opponents combined — and winning six of the 11 counties included in the vast district. (As of Tuesday night, results were not yet available for Marion and Clackamas counties, so it’s possible Nash could go eight for 11; in any event, it’s impressive.)

Hansell himself had an interesting observation about the race: He noted that Wallowa County tends to vote as a bloc with Union County, and that was apparent again Tuesday night, as both counties went for Nash in a big way: More than half of his total votes came from the two counties. It gave him an edge in this race that his opponents could not overcome.

Nash said he believed that he’s the first state senator elected from Wallowa County. If Hansell’s observation holds true, and another candidate can take advantage of the Wallowa-Union bloc, he might not be the last.

We also expected a tighter race between the two candidates for the Position No. 2 judgeship in the 10th Judicial District, which includes Wallowa and Union counties. In that race, La Grande attorney Jared Boyd unseated incumbent judge Wes Williams — and claimed convincing margins in both counties.

It’s rare for a judicial contest to draw more one candidate; in fact, by our count, 53 of the 60 circuit court races on the ballot statewide on Tuesday were unopposed. Most of those races involved incumbents. Just three races across the state involved an incumbent judge facing a challenge. Williams was the only incumbent who lost.

Overall, it’s not a good thing that so many judicial incumbents don’t face challengers; in fact, that was one of the reasons why Williams entered his first judicial race some six years ago. The race between Boyd and Williams cast some light on the workings of our court system, and regardless of what you thought about the result, that’s a good thing.

One county race remains to be decided at the November election, and that’s the race to determine who will move into the seat that Nash is leaving on the Wallowa County Board of Commissioners. Lisa Collier and Devin Patton survived the primary election, outpolling three other candidates.

The unofficial vote tallies between Collier and Patton were close: Collier tallied 1,380 votes and Patton, who entered the race relatively late, drew 1,298. The two candidates had nothing but good things to say about each other last week and, although that relationship is bound to be strained a bit during the heat and dust of the campaign, we’re looking forward to a positive race focusing on the issues each candidate deems most important.

Finally, turnout in Wallowa County did pick up in the last few days before the election: It looks as if nearly 1,500 voters returned their ballots on Monday and Tuesday of last week, driving turnout to about 54.7% — the second-best mark in the state, and much better than the state turnout of 33.6%.

But, frankly, none of those numbers should trigger celebration: 54.7% in a presidential election year, with a number of important local races on the ballot, isn’t anything to write home about.

We can do better. November gives us another chance to do so.