Despite spirited challenges from Democrats in some races, Carroll County returned an all-Republican General Assembly delegation to Annapolis yesterday, led by State Sen. Larry E. Haines, who handily won a fourth term.

In central Carroll District 5A, incumbent Dels. Carmen Amedori and Nancy R. Stocksdale turned back a challenge from Robert P. Wack.

In District 4, which straddles Carroll and Frederick counties, Del. Donald B. Elliott, a four-term incumbent from Union Bridge, won in a landslide over Thomas Morrison by a near 4-1 margin. David Brinkley, who ousted two-term Sen. Timothy Ferguson in the Republican primary, took the District 4 Senate seat by a similar margin.

In the new single-member district representing South Carroll, voters chose Republican Susan W. Krebs, president of the county school board, over Democrat Kenneth Holniker, an attorney and longtime community activist. Krebs, who defeated five other candidates in the Republican primary in the new subdistrict 9B, bested Holniker by more than 3,000 votes.

"Krebs has been active in the county, starting as a parent petitioning so we could get more schools down here," said Beth Kaste, a stay-at-home mother, after voting in Eldersburg. "She has been a fair representative for every area on the school board and she will represent the interests of the whole county in Annapolis."

Holniker spent twice as much as Krebs in his quest to represent Carroll's fastest-growing area, which includes Eldersburg and Sykesville. "You need people to win an election, not money," said Krebs. "You just can't buy the energies of the people I have working for me in this grass-roots campaign."

Krebs said her victory indicates that, "The people in Carroll County clearly have spoken of the need for a change in Westminster and Annapolis."

Democrat Wack launched a campaign aimed at attracting Republican votes in District 5A, which includes Westminster, Hampstead and Manchester, and stretches from the Baltimore County line in Finksburg to the Pennsylvania border. Of the district's nearly 40,000 registered voters, 23,156 are Republican.

"This was a real grass-roots thing for Wack," said Patricia McTighe, a Westminster teacher, who handed out literature at Carroll Springs School. "He was really organized, worked really hard and went everywhere he could."

But incumbency had the last word.

"I like their views," Karen Barbour of Westminster said after voting for Stocksdale and Amedori. "They both helped me with a legislative effort."

Stocksdale, who garnered the most votes in the district, initially won her seat in 1994. Amedori was first elected in 1998. Wack trailed Amedori by nearly 8,000 votes.

"I am pleased that voters are happy and satisfied with the job I have been doing," said Amedori. "I'll continue to do it."

Haines, who has represented the district in the Senate since 1991, defeated Ronald Zepp, an electrician for Baltimore Public Works Department making his first bid for office, by a margin of more than 3-1.

The last Democrat to represent the county in Annapolis was Ellen Willis Miller, who was appointed to fill Richard N. Dixon's seat when he became state treasurer in 1996.