Lincoln will send at least three  new senators to the Legislature next year. And on Tuesday voters narrowed the possibilities in three  of four races.

Former City Councilman Ken Haar and entrepreneur James Arthur Jeffers finished on top in District 21 in northwest Lincoln, a district that had six contenders.

Haar collected the most votes  in District 21 and attributed it to getting out and meeting a lot of people in a diverse district.

“Walking door to door paid off,” he said.

His plan, he said, was just to make it through the primary.

Six people in the race made it less predictable, especially with some dual endorsements, he said.

Jeffers said he knows he has a formidable opponent in Haar with his City Council experience and other things going for him.

“I’m looking forward to it (the general election campaign) quite frankly,” he said.

His goal in the general election is to keep the race focused on the issues.

“That’s what the voters want,” Jeffers said.

In northeast Lincoln’s District 25, former Lancaster County Board member Kathy Campbell and retired Air National Guardsman Travis Wagner will go on to the general election.

The top two vote-getters advance in each legislative race.

Campbell, 61, who had the highest vote totals with nearly 54 percent of the unofficial vote, said the number of volunteers and people who contributed to the campaign in different ways showed that by working in the community over 25 years a person can make a lot of friends.

“That’s really fun to see,” she said.

People in the 25th District like good solid public policy, she said, and they know her and the work she’s done in that regard.

Travis Wagner, 61, finished second and said the returns were about what he expected and came from a lot of hard work and listening to residents of the district. 

In District 27, in the south and west area of the city, Lincoln City Councilman Dan Marvin and human services director Colby Coash  collected the top votes.

Marvin, who led the candidates, said he believed people knew him from his position on the Lincoln City Council to be a person of his word.

“People know I try to tackle the issues, be fair and honest with people,” Marvin said.

Coash said he was pretty happy with the primary results.

“I didn’t expect to beat Dan Marvin, but I expected to come in second and move on to the general,” he said.

He plans to meet more people and work hard heading toward November.

“I’m counting my votes one at a time,” he said.

Southeast Lincoln’s District 29 has only two candidates — Tony Fulton, an incumbent, and Susan Scott — and both will advance.

Fulton, 35, said he had a sense the race was going to be close. The unofficial final count showed Fulton ahead by only 40 votes.

Scott said she felt she would do well against the incumbent, who was appointed by Gov. Dave Heineman in 2006 after Mike Foley sought and won the position of state auditor.

The close vote will help her with fundraising, she said, because contributors told her they wanted to see how she did in the primary before committing money to her campaign. The district, she said, hasn’t sent a Democrat to the Legislature in 35 years.

Fulton, 35, is an entrepreneur and has an engineering degree.

Scott, 60, is the former executive director of a nonprofit and is a business consultant and substitute teacher.

In District 1, located in a portion of Cass County and in Otoe, Johnson, Nemaha, Pawnee and Richardson counties, incumbent Lavon Heidemann got the largest number of votes.

Write-in candidate Jerry Joy  said he believed  he got more than the 5 percent of votes necessary to advance. He said he figured he needed about 350 votes and got more than 1,000. 

Term limits played a big role in the races this year; 15 of 25 seats up for election having no incumbents.

In other notable legislative races, Brenda Council was getting the largest number of votes by far and Dennis Womack and John Carter were in a tight race for second in District 11, Ernie Chambers’ district. Chambers is leaving because of term limits.

In the Omaha area District 18,  Sen. Scott Lautenbaugh, appointed to replace Mick Mines, who resigned mid-term, was in a close race with Carl Lorenzen of Blair, a retired brigadier general with the Nebraska Air National Guard.

Reach JoAnne Young at 473-7228 or jyoung@journalstar.com.