If results from the recent primary election hold up during Tuesday's runoff, Burrell Ellis has a good shot at becoming the next chief executive officer of DeKalb County.

The county commissioner outpaced four competitors to take 46 percent of the vote in the Democratic primary July 15. It wasn't enough to win outright so Ellis will face second-place finisher state Rep. Stan Watson (D-Decatur), who got 26 percent of the vote.

But the primary results bode well for Ellis. He took a huge lead in his central DeKalb district in the primary and also dominated in the northern part of the county, according to an analysis of the election results by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Watson won in south DeKalb, but not by much.

Ellis, who also outpaced all the candidates in campaign fund-raising, can go into the runoff knowing that he led in three of DeKalb's five commission districts. Where he won, he won big, clobbering Watson with two to six times as many votes in central and north DeKalb, according to the AJC analysis. And where he lost, it was close: He trailed Watson by 2 to 8 percentage points in south DeKalb's two commission districts.

Watson has touted the southern part of the county as his stronghold. He represents part of the area in the state Legislature.

Judging from the primary results, Watson, 54, can win again in south DeKalb. A big turnout for him there could be decisive since the population of Democratic voters is larger in the south. But the numbers are against him in the rest of the county: He got between 11 percent and 13 percent of the vote in north DeKalb's two commission districts, compared with 68 percent and 59 percent for Ellis. In Ellis' central DeKalb commission district, nearly half the voters went for Ellis and a quarter voted for Watson.

Watson said he expected to lose votes in the primary to the two female candidates, Ann Kimbrough and Steen Miles, since a majority of the voters in south DeKalb are women. (There are more than 40 percent more women registered there, according to election data.) With Kimbrough, Miles and the fifth candidate, Joe Bembry, gone, it's unclear whom their supporters will back. Miles and Bembry have endorsed Ellis.

Kimbrough, chief of staff to outgoing CEO Vernon Jones, has not endorsed either candidate. There is no Republican candidate, so the winner of the Democratic runoff will be the next CEO.

Both Watson and Ellis, 50, said they would be working across the county to woo the other candidates' voters and to encourage their own supporters to turn out for them Tuesday.

Ellis said he and his campaign workers have been making phone calls and knocking on doors.

Both Ellis and Watson are concerned about low turnout.

Fewer than one in five DeKalb voters cast a ballot for CEO in the primary. Watson expects as few as one in 10 to return to the polls on Tuesday.