RUMFORD – With only five of 29 Senate District 14 towns reporting election results by 11 p.m. Tuesday, incumbent Sen. Bruce S. Bryant, D-Dixfield, led challenger, Glen E. Holmes, R-Buckfield, by 4,000 votes.

Bethel, Jay, Mexico and Rumford voters overwhelmingly went with Bryant, a 47-year-old paper millworker at NewPage Inc. in Rumford. Byron also chose Bryant.

Bryant had 6,357 votes to 2,335 tallied by Holmes, 44, who has served Buckfield as its town manager for the past four years.

Bryant was first elected to the Senate in 2002, after having served as a state legislator from 1998 to 2002.

A Clean Election candidate and the father of three daughters, Bryant said last month that if elected he planned to use his final Senate term to build on his work to increase public access to rivers and streams.

Additionally, he said he would continue his commitment to secure high-paying livable-wage jobs for Western Maine. That’s why, he added, it’s important to get the River Valley Technology Center up and running in Rumford.

The Dirigo High School graduate chairs the Legislature’s Committee on Inland Fisheries and Wildlife and would like to serve on the commission created to merge Maine’s six natural resource agencies.

Holmes, a Mexico High School graduate and Clean Election candidate, said last month that he chose to run against Bryant to give the Senate a rural voice.

Reducing state spending would be his top legislative goal if elected.

“I feel this can be accomplished by simply eliminating some of the duplication of effort I see as town manager,” Holmes said last month.