The race for sheriff of Clayton County continued to be neck-and-neck even as more than half the precincts reporting.
Sheriff Kem Kimbrough and his predecessor Victor Hill each had the lead at one time but usually by less than 150 votes.
The two have been engaged in a bitter grudge match since they faced off four years ago in a primary runoff that lost Hill the office he won in 2004 and put Kimbrough in the sheriff's office. The intensity increased after the two were forced into a runoff -- for the second time -- as the two top vote-getters out of a field of eight on the July 31 primary ballot.
But in the past few weeks, debates and campaign appearances have been even more vitriolic. Kimbrough focused on Hill's 37-count indictment that charges him with racketeering and theft while he was in office as well as the bankruptcy he filed as he left office at the end of 2008. Likewise, Hill has tried to cast Kimbrough as a philanderer who allegedly fired a female employee when she declined to engage in a sexual relationship with him, an allegation the sheriff has vehemently denied.
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