Two Lowcountry representatives targeted by Democrats for defeat faced different fates Tuesday in their first general elections as Republicans.

Incumbent state Rep. John “Bubber” Snow, who switched to the Republican Party last spring, lost to Democratic challenger Carl Anderson for the rural Georgetown-area seat.

But incumbent Rep. George Bailey was leading Democratic candidate Lachlan McIntosh for the seat in rural Dorchester County. Bailey also switched to the GOP during the past year.

Meanwhile, outspoken Rep. John Graham Altman, R-Charleston, defeated Charlie Smith, a gay Democrat who has called Altman a bigot. Altman has said Smith contributes to the decay of traditional values.

Snow, a former Democrat, has been a House member for much of the past two decades. Bailey has served in the House for parts of two decades.

Tuesday’s House races were not expected to shift the balance of power from Republican control, but Democrats hoped to make some inroads.

One was in the Abbeville-Anderson area, where Democrat Paul Agnew was leading Republican Sammy Lewis by a comfortable margin with 90 percent of the vote tallied for an open seat.

Going into Tuesday’s election, the GOP held a commanding 75-49 majority in the House. Early election results showed many Republicans again on the way to victory, including House Speaker pro-tem Doug Smith of Spartanburg and Rep. Dwight Loftis of Greenville. But most incumbent Democrats also appeared to be holding on to their seats.