Voters elect Gibbons Madison County state's attorney

Madison County State's Attorney Thomas Gibbons beat out Alton attorney Amy Sholar on Tuesday to keep the post he was appointed to two years ago.

Gibbons, a Democrat, received 64,161 votes in Tuesday's election, according to election results from the county's 225 precincts. Sholar, his Republican opponent, garnered 53,022 votes, losing her bid by more than 11,000 votes.

The race to be the county’s top prosecutor became rather heated last month, during which time both candidates took some jabs at each other and reported a combined total of about $80,000 in donations.

Gibbons filed a disclosure complaint against Sholar, accusing her of not properly disclosing campaign contributions and expenditures.

And among other allegations made during the campaign, Gibbons claimed Sholar wasn’t fiscally responsible because she previously filed for bankruptcy while Sholar accused Gibbons of being behind on child support payments.

Sholar late last month said the state’s attorney’s race was getting ugly and Gibbons said he was disgusted that the candidates’ divorces and personal matters had made it into their campaigns.