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COVINGTON, La. (WGNO) — The race for Saint Tammany Sheriff will require a runoff.  Incumbent Jack Strain flirted with avoiding the runoff at some points during the vote count Saturday night but ended the evening with 45 percent of the vote. His opponent, Slidell Police Chief Randy Smith finished with 37%. The runoff will not only pit a former deputy, Smith, against his one-time boss, Strain, but it could also be a battle between east and west Saint Tammany as well as calls for change versus satisfaction with previous success. Smith won reelection as Slidell’s chief last year and will be term limited out.  But there is no term limit on STP sheriff, a position that Strain has held for nearly 20 years. Smith says he will bring his message for a change in leadership from the Slidell area, where he feels he has a stronger voter base, to the western side of the parish, generally considered to be a Strain stronghold. “We’re going to work harder on that side and get to the people that want that change and want new leadership in St. Tammany,” Smith told WGNO News from his campaign party Saturday night in Slidell.
On the other side of the parish, at his campaign party in Covington, Sheriff Strain said his runoff campaign will focus on the issues, mainly that the parish has enjoyed safe streets during his time in office.  He’s counter Smith’s call for change with his own insistence that things are good the way they are now. “The safety that St. Tammany Parish has right now does not happen by accident.  It takes good planning.  It takes good management.  It takes a team working every day to maintain that and keep it that way,” Strain said.