JOHN DAY — Having lost by such a narrow margin to Grant County Sheriff Glenn Palmer in 2016 — 2,208-2,065 — Todd McKinley said he was “pleasantly surprised” by the margin by which he won on Tuesday, Nov. 4.

McKinley, who needed roughly 75 people to change their minds on Election Day, defeated Palmer, a five-term incumbent, by more than 600 votes — 2,548-1,936.

McKinley said he spent no money on his campaign, and he did not want it to appear to the public as if he did.

“It always is better when the people come forward and make a choice,” he said. “It needed to be the people’s choice.”

Up until the polls closed at 8 p.m., McKinley said he was “at peace” with what the results were going to be.

“It was going to be how it was going to be,” he said.

When he is sworn in January, McKinley said he would come in and look at what is working within the office and what is not working and make the appropriate changes. However, he stressed that those changes would be incremental.

“I am not going to be jumping in and making drastic changes,” he said. “Why fix something that is not broken?”

He said there are a lot of good employees at the sheriff’s office.

“I worked with many of them,” he said. “They know who I am.”

McKinley, a longtime Grant County resident, will be leading the office where he began his policing career.

He was a reserve in the Grant County Sheriff’s Office under Palmer’s predecessor, Fred Reusser, in 1998, and got hired on as a full-time deputy in 2001, working alongside Palmer until 2015, and also serving as undersheriff for a time.

Over the years, the relationship soured, and McKinley took the helm of the probation department in 2015.

He said he appreciated the voter turnout this year.

“It was great to see Grant County show up,” he said. “This is the people’s office.”

Palmer, who ends a 16-year run as sheriff, declined to comment.