Voters throughout southern Indiana chose the two candidates who will square off to represent the 9th District in U.S. Congress and stuck with the incumbent in the Republican race.

Republican incumbent Trey Hollingsworth will defend his seat in November against Democrat Liz Watson. Final statewide results were not available.

Hollingsworth defeated challenger James Dean Alspach in Tuesday’s primary, gathering 72 percent of the vote in Johnson County to Alpach’s 28 percent. Liz Watson took 73 percent of the county vote, compared to 24 percent for Dan Canon and 3 percent for Rob Chatlos.

Running for his second term, Hollingsworth campaigned on a platform of continuing the work he’s been doing for the past two years. His focuses in Congress were addressing taxes, reducing government oversight into business and limiting outside influence on politicians.

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He is poised to do make more progress moving forward, he said.

Watson is running for office for the first time. She said that Hollingsworth was not representing the interests of people in the 9th District, and campaigned with a focus on issues such as improving wages for working Hoosiers, universal health care and protecting the environment.

Hollingsworth and Watson both move on to the general election. No independent candidate has filed to be on the November ballot, though they have until July 2 to do so.

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Johnson County results only

Republican

James Dean Alspach;3,950

Trey Hollingsworth;10,409

Democrat

Dan Canon;795

Rob Chatlos;94

Liz Watson;2,391

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