By VICKI URBANIK

Greg Simms couldn’t hold onto the state legislative seat he won just last fall in a party caucus, as Democrat voters on Tuesday handed the nomination for 10th District State Representative to Chuck Moseley of Portage.

Moseley secured a commanding 54 percent of the vote total in the three-way race. Moseley got 6,935 votes, far ahead of Simms’ 3,744 votes and Porter County Council President Robert Poparad’s 2,145 votes.

Moseley, the director of public relations and business development for North Shore Clinic in Portage and a former Portage School Board member, will face Republican Kenneth Kaminski in November’s general election.

Moseley, Simms and Poparad battled for the seat last fall, when Democrat precinct committee members had to fill a vacancy created with the sudden death of Jack Clem, who had been appointed to the seat a few months earlier following the resignation of Duane Cheney. Simms, a Center Township resident, won in the caucus.

Of the three candidates, only Moseley is a Portage resident, which may have given him a big advantage in a legislative district dominated by Portage precincts.

However, Moseley said he was up against “two strong candidates” and campaigned hard.

“It was a nail biter for me,” he said. “We never took anything for granted.”

He credited his win to his supporters who launched a grassroots effort to drum up votes throughout the district. “We worked very, very hard,” he said.

Moseley acknowledged that his support in Portage helped, but he also said he had a strong showing throughout the district, which includes precincts in the Duneland community as well as Center Township. Looking ahead to the fall, Moseley said he’ll campaign with the same vigor as he did in the primary.

“We’re going to take a couple of days rest and reorganize and then do the best job we can,” he said.

A look at the Duneland precincts in the 10th district shows a mixed bag, with Poparad by far the top vote getter.

Moseley won in Westchester 16 with 89 votes to Poparad’s 86 and Simms, 59. He also won in Westchester 17 with 55 votes (Poparad, 32 and Simms, 19). Simms, meanwhile, won in Westchester 18, with 62 votes to Poparad’s 51 and Moseley’s 30.

But Poparad won big in a few Westchester precincts: W11, where Poparad got 110 votes (to Moseley’s 55 and Simms’ 41); W5, with 114 votes to Moseley’s 59 and Simms’ 67; Liberty 2, with 117 votes to Moseley’s 68 and Simms’ 75; and W4, with 125 votes to Moseley’s 61 and Simms’ 81. Poparad also won in L1, with 120 votes to Moseley’s 117 and Simms’ 71.

The results for W3 and W10, which are also in the 10th district, were not available Tuesday night.

Posted 5/7/2008