BRENTWOOD - Rockingham County Sheriff Michael Downing and County Attorney James Reams have handily won reelection based on unofficial voting results from Tuesday's election.

While the Secretary of State's office must still tabulate the numbers to confirm final results, preliminary numbers from the city of Portsmouth and the 36 towns in the county show Downing, the Republican incumbent from Salem, with 79,816 votes to Democratic challenger John Clark's 69,217.

In the county attorney's race, Reams, the Republican incumbent, had 76,410 votes while Democratic opponent Joe Plaia took in 58,441 votes. Preliminary totals for Libertarian candidate Max Abramson weren't available, but he appeared to lag far behind Downing and Reams in most towns.

"I am humbled that the citizens of Rockingham County continue to support my vision for the County Attorney's Office," said Reams, a Hampton resident.

Downing didn't have final numbers and was still waiting for results from a few towns Wednesday morning, but he said that “all indications are the numbers show we've won reelection.”

Downing was encouraged by the nearly 10,000-vote difference between him and Clark.

“It shows that people appreciate the job we're doing in the sheriff's department and they have faith in us. That's very positive,” Downing said.

Clark, a Rye resident, said he wasn't sure of the outcome of the race as he wasn't gathering numbers Tuesday night.