School board incumbents fared poorly across Madison County on Tuesday, according to election results.

Most got booted off their boards.

This goes against the typical trend of incumbents having the upper hand against their challengers. For instance, most incumbents kept their seats in Delaware County school board races.

The problems incumbents faced in Madison County shared a common theme: challengers with popular names, popular recognition and popular connections.

In some cases, incumbents who were defeated had served no more than one term and ran against individuals better known for a longer period of time.

Here’s what happened Tuesday:

• All three incumbents were unseated in Alexandria school board races.

• Two out of three incumbents were defeated in Elwood school board races. The incumbent who got to keep his seat had no opponent.

• Two incumbents were voted off the South Madison school board.

• A Frankton-Lapel incumbent narrowly defeated his challenger by 24 votes.

• Two incumbents were defeated in Anderson school board races.

Anderson Community School Corp.

Tim Long had an edge over the school board incumbent he unseated: Long shares the name of a former, well-known superintendent of the school district.

Long defeated incumbent Walter S. Fitch, who had served on the board for a year, and three other challengers for the South 1 position. Long admitted that part of the reason for his win was name recognition because of the former superintendent.

But also, his name was familiar because of his work with the local Save Our Schools movement.