Republican State Rep. Jim Carlin narrowly defeated Democrat Todd Wendt in a special election Tuesday for a vacant state Senate seat where GOP voters dominate. In unofficial results with all precincts reporting, Carlin, of Sioux City, outlasted Wendt, of Le Mars, by 603 votes in the district, which includes the western two-thirds of Plymouth County and northern and western areas of Woodbury County, including Sioux City's Morningside neighborhood.