Joe Imel/Daily News Republican Brett Guthrie thanks his supporters Tuesday night after winning the 2nd Congressional District race. :: Click here to launch a photo slideshow from Election Night in Warren Co.

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After being elected Tuesday to the U.S. House of Representatives, Bowling Green Republican Brett Guthrie said he will begin thinking today about when to resign his current state Senate seat.

When Guthrie resigns, this will signal who is to call a special election, according to Secretary of State Tray Grayson.

If Guthrie resigns while the General Assembly is in session, then the Senate leadership would set the election within five weeks. If the General Assembly is not in session, it would be up to the governor. The senate election would be for the one-year unexpired term, Grayson said.

“I need to speak with Sen. (David) Williams before I make that decision,” Guthrie said.

Until then he is, however briefly, basking in the victory over Owensboro Democrat David Boswell. Guthrie took the race in the 21-county district 158,700 to 143,213, with all but one Jefferson County precinct reporting, according to the Secretary of State’s Web site.

It was 8:30 p.m. Tuesday, however, before Guthrie gave his victory speech to campaign workers, waiting for more returns to come in and from a call from Boswell.

“He congratulated me,” Guthrie said after the brief phone call.

“When we started this campaign, it was a safe seat for the Republicans,” the Associated Press reported that Boswell told a small group of supporters at the Democratic headquarters in Owensboro. “Then it went to being a likely seat for the Republicans ... to it being a toss-up. That’s what we see tonight.”

On election night, the supporters in Guthrie’s crowed included Warren County Drug Task Force Director Tommy Loving, car dealership owner Jim Johnson, college students, family friends, Warren County Judge-Executive Mike Buchanon and some “classy Democrats who crossed party lines,” said Chris Guthrie, Brett Guthrie’s brother.

In introducing his brother to the crowd, Chris Guthrie relayed regrets from one county Democrat who had to leave early because of a family illness - Joe Natcher.

Natcher, the nephew of the late longtime congressman William H. Natcher, stopped by the staunch Democrat’s grave Tuesday to pick an Ohio buckeye from the tree planted there.

As representative for the 2nd District, William Natcher kept a large bowl of buckeyes next to his Washington office door and would make sure that visitors took one away as good luck.

Guthrie told his brother that Joe Natcher wanted him to have a buckeye, which Brett Guthrie took, beaming, and slipped in his pocket.

He told the crowd that voters sent a message that they wanted to reject consultant-driven character assassinations such as those attempted by Boswell’s camp.

During the campaign, Boswell pointed the finger at the Democratic Congressional Committee as the source of the negative advertising that suggested that Guthrie’s family business, Trace Die Cast, sent jobs out of the country.

Guthrie told his supporters that those ads were an insult to his parents, Lowell and Carolyn Guthrie, who have provided jobs to numerous people in the area and to the numerous people they helped put through college.

It’s such tactics that Guthrie said he wants to abolish.

“We want to change politics as usual,” he said.

And that means finding issues where both parties can work together and fashion bipartisan agreements.

Guthrie said he decided to join the race at the last minute after U.S. Rep. Ron Lewis, R-Cecilia, decided he would not seek re-election.

After consulting with his wife, Beth, they decided he could run for the “tomorrows of our children.”

The Guthries have been married for 19 years and have three children, Caroline, 15, Robby, 13, and Elizabeth, 10.

“I guess I should have known that this was something he would do,” Beth Guthrie said. “He’s always had an interest ... .”

Beth Guthrie said she and the children will remain in Bowling Green and Brett Guthrie will commute on weekends from Washington.

The children, she said, are already greatly involved in the community and their schools, so she wants to maintain a stable environment for them.

Elizabeth said she is excited about the prospect of visiting her father in Washington.

“I think he can make a change in Washington,” she said. “The economy is in really bad shape. ... He really enjoys it and has his heart in it.”

Buchanon agreed.

“We were fortunate to have Brett Guthrie as our senator in Frankfort and we feel especially blessed to have him represent us in Congress,” Buchanon said. “Certainly the economy is foremost on everyone’s mind and Brett is an accomplished businessman, and I’m confident he will put that as a top priority.

“I think after this election everyone in the nation is expecting greater things from our elected officials,” he said. “I think Brett is one of the most qualified persons to ever be elected.”

Indeed the economy will be a focus of Guthrie’s, who said he hopes to serve on the Financial Services Committee.

“Obviously Ways and Means Committee also would be a desire but as a freshman that’s not likely,” Guthrie said.

With a military complex in the district at Fort Knox that is expected to swell the area’s population and economy, Guthrie said he also is interested in serving on the Armed Services Committee.

Guthrie and his friend and fellow state Sen. Richie Sanders, R-Franklin, hit the campaign trail together. After church Sunday, the two covered the district, meeting voters and getting their message out.

The district is unique in that it has two federal facilities, Fort Knox and Mammoth Cave National Park, wonderful natural resources and interesting people, he said.

Sanders, who said it was a great opportunity to serve in Frankfort with Guthrie, noted “what a ride” the campaign had been.

Now Guthrie said: “It’s time to get ready to go to Washington.”

In the 1st Congressional District, which includes Allen, Simpson, Logan and Butler counties in the area, Republican Ed Whitfield held onto his seat, carrying all those counties by up to 37 percentage points. Overall he beat opponent Heather Ryan 178,016 (64.4 percent) to 98,596 (35.6 percent.)