Republican Keith Ripp and Democrat Trish O'Neil will square off in November to determine who will replace longtime state Rep. Eugene Hahn in representing the 47th Assembly District.

Independent candidate Dennis Hruby also will be on the ballot.

With only a few precincts left to report late Tuesday, Ripp garnered more than half of the votes cast in the Republican primary among four candidates.

The seat became vacant with the retirement of Hahn, a Republican from Cambria. He decided not to run for re-election for the seat he's held since 1990.

Ripp, a town of Dane supervisor and president of the Wisconsin Soybean Marketing Board, bested three other Republicans: Tim McCumber, town administrator for the town of Merrimac; Portage school board member Steven Pate of the town of Pacific; and Erich Ruth, a DeForest Village Board member.

Ripp said he was surprised to get so many votes in comparison to the three other Republicans on the ballot.

"We're pleased - a little surprised. I thought it'd be a tighter, closer race," he said.

Ripp credited the votes to starting his campaign around January and getting a head-start.

"We laid some groundwork early on and put in a lot of hard work with good volunteers, family friends," he said. "I thank them a lot."

Ripp said he looked forward to two more months of campaigning before the general election Nov. 4.

"We'll have to step it up a notch, probably," he said.

Ripp wasn't the only candidate in the race surprised by the results.

"We thought they'd be more evenly split," McCumber said. "We don't even know how Keith pulled away like that."

Ruth said he would support Ripp in the general election.

"You run a race; the results turn out they way they are," Ruth added.

Pate, who ran unsuccessfully in 2004 in a Republican primary against Hahn, said "it was a good race."

"Obviously, the voters made their choice. We'll live with that," he said.

At a party at her Columbus home with supporters, O'Neil, a former Columbus School Board president, said she was "ecstatic" at learning she'd grabbed the Democratic nomination.

"I am just delighted," O'Neil said Tuesday night, just as some late results were announced. "We are celebrating tonight."

O'Neil beat out Paul Fisk, Lodi's former mayor.

One of O'Neil's supporters in her race was former 47th candidate Meagan Yost, who unsuccessfully ran three times trying to unseat Hahn. Yost encouraged O'Neil to run after she decided not to give it another go.

"She was tired," O'Neil said. "I can't blame her a bit, after what I've seen campaigning."

O'Neil said during her campaigning that the economy became the top topic with voters she encountered. She asked voters what they thought should be done, and offered some of her own solutions, such as making large corporations pay more of a fair share in comparison to individual taxpayers.

More campaigning looms for O'Neil.

"I'm not thinking of that tonight, I'll think of that tomorrow," she said Tuesday. "We did it this time, against the odds. We'll do it again."

Fisk said Tuesday he was going to call O'Neil and congratulate her. He said he was disappointed in the loss "but I think Trish ran a good campaign. I think I ran a good campaign."

"It shows the people of the 47th District are not happy with the status quo," he added.

Hruby is a former farmer and teacher who lives in the township of Dane.

The 47th Assembly District includes parts of Columbia County, with the exception of Portage, Wyocena, Pardeeville, Wisconsin Dells and the towns of Wyocena, Marcellon, Fort Winnebago, Lewiston, Caledonia and Newport. It also includes the northwest corner and the northern towns of Dane County and a small portion of Sauk County.

Here are unofficial results in the 47th Assembly District race with a few precincts left to report in Columbia, Sauk and Dane counties:

REPUBLICANS

Keith Ripp

Total: 1,687 (53.56 percent)

Columbia: 991 (57.52 percent)

Dane: 683 (52.41 percent)

Sauk County: 13

Erich Ruth

Total: 565 (17.94 percent)

Columbia: 189 (10.97 percent)

Dane: 375 (28.77 percent)

Sauk County: 1

Tim McCumber

Total: 546 (17.33 percent)

Columbia: 266 (15.44 percent)

Dane: 170 (13.04 percent)

Sauk County: 110

Steven Pate

Total: 352 (11.17 percent)

Columbia: 275 (15.96 percent)

Dane: 75 (5.75 percent)

Sauk County: 2

DEMOCRATS

Trish O'Neil

Total: 1,739 (61.84 percent)

Columbia: 861 (55.33 percent)

Dane: 829 (68.91 percent)

Sauk County: 49

Paul Fisk

Total: 1,073 (38.16 percent)

Columbia: 692 (44.47 percent)

Dane: 374 (31.08 percent)

Sauk County: 7

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