Margie Bright wins seat to replace slain Senator

CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP/WCIV) – Voters in South Carolina’s Lowcountry chose by overwhelming majority a new senator to fill the seat of Clementa Pinckney who was slain in the Charleston church shootings earlier this year. Democrat Margie Bright Matthews, a Walterboro attorney, beat Republican Al Fernandez, a small businessman and minister, by a preliminary vote count of 5,759-750. District 45 includes parts of six counties reaching from Charleston to the state’s southern tip in Jasper County. Pinckney and eight other parishioners were shot and killed in June in the shootings at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston.