DALTON, Ga. — Chuck Payne, R-Dalton, emerged the victor Tuesday night in the GOP primary for state Senate District 54.

Payne, the incumbent, defeated Scott Tidwell, a pastor and assistant funeral home director from Resaca, with 4,999 votes (52.85 percent) to 4559 votes (47.17 percent), according to the Secretary of State’s website. Payne faces Democrat Michael Morgan of Whitfield County, a laboratory manager, in the Nov. 6 general election.

“I’m tired, but I’m feeling pretty good,” Payne said Tuesday night.

“I’m grateful to the voters and the people of the district for believing in me. We won on a positive message, and that’s what I’m proud of,” he said.

Tidwell congratulated Payne after the results were final.

“He had a great, well-run campaign,” Tidwell said. “I’m honored to have received the support of so many people. I’ve enjoyed meeting the voters of the 54th district. It’s time now for us as the Republican Party to move forward.”

The two clashed throughout the campaign over a bill that would have changed the driver’s licenses Georgia issues to illegal aliens to make them distinguishable from those issued to citizens and legal aliens.

“I would have voted for that bill,” said Tidwell said at a candidates forum in April the Daily Citizen-News hosted. “I believe that the illegal alien problem is a great one, and Georgia needs to stop being a magnet for illegal aliens.”

Payne said Tidwell was “misinforming” voters about both the bill and his vote against it.

“This was a state driver’s license bill, not an immigration bill,” he said. “I read through these bills before I vote on them, and all this bill would have done was increase government. It wouldn’t deny any driver’s license to anyone. At the end of the day, everyone who is driving in Georgia would still be driving.”

The state issues driver’s licenses to those who do not have lawful status but have been issued work permits under former President Barack Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

Tidwell said he is “definitely” supporting Payne in the race for the state Senate seat against Morgan.

Payne said he will take a couple of weeks off to rest.

“Then I will be right back on the campaign trail,” he said.

Payne served in the U.S. Army for four years in the 82nd Airborne Division. After leaving the Army, Payne and his wife Angie returned to Whitfield County, where he began a career with the Georgia Department of Juvenile Justice, first at the Dalton Regional Youth Detention Center as a probation/parole specialist and then as a juvenile probation officer in first Catoosa County and then Murray County.

Payne attended his first meeting of the Whitfield County Republican Party in 1991. During the following 25 years, he held party offices at the state, congressional district and local levels, including multiple terms as chairman of the Whitfield County Republican Party.

He took first place in a five-way election in December 2016 to fill the unexpired term of Charlie Bethel, who had been named to the state Court of Appeals. Then he won a runoff in January 2017, taking office a few days after the session began.