CAIRO — Grady County’s Republican Party chair is taking pride in the slate of candidates voters will see on their ballots this spring.

“We’ve got a really good group,” said party chair Jeff Jolly. “I don’t see anything wrong with any of them.”

The qualifying period for the May 19 primary election closed last week, and this year’s ballot will feature a robust presence from Republicans, who are fielding at least one candidate in each partisan contest.

With 14 candidates in total, Jolly said voters will be able to select from a capable group of individuals in four competitive primaries, including sheriff and two contests for seats on the county Board of Commissioners.

“Competition breeds excellence,” said Jolly, who previously helped run Herman West’s 2018 congressional campaign. “You get more ideas of how to fix things when you have more people running.”

Democratic Party chair Sandra Sallee said she will gladly support each of the four Democratic candidates who qualified to run in May, though she added that she wishes there were more names in the mix.

“I would like to see a Democrat run for every single seat from dog catcher all the way up and down ballot,” said Sallee, currently serving her first term as party chair.

Living in deeply conservative Grady County makes forging inroads a challenge, Sallee said, but she has high hopes for what the party can accomplish this year.

With none of the Democratic candidates facing opposition in their respective primaries, each of them is guaranteed to appear on the November ballot. That may be good news for each of the individual candidates, but Sallee said it would be more advantageous for voters to have more options on their ballots.

“That would mean that we have a wide variety and then therefore the most qualified person hopefully would be chosen,” she said.

Early voting for the May 19 general primary begins April 27.

The winners of the primary will advance to the general election Nov. 3.