Eddy County voters take to the polls

Nearly 700 Eddy County voters took to the polls on Tuesday, June 11 for North Dakota’s primary elections, and several locally-contested races were decided by just a handful of votes.

The packed race for the two-year unexpired term on the New Rockford City Commission was of particular interest, as there wasn’t a single candidate appearing on the ballot. However, there were three individuals running write-in campaigns for the seat.

Carter Richter, Justin Ystaas and George Ritzke were each asking New Rockford residents to write their name in for the position, and it was Ystaas who came out on top by just seven votes.

Only 114 city residents chose to write in anyone’s name, and 38 chose to write in Ystaas, who currently holds a seat on the city commission.

Coming in second place was Carter Richter with 31 votes, while Ritzke garnered 26 write-in votes. There were 19 other write-in votes for more than 15 individuals.

For the two open 4-year positions on the city commission, which are currently held by Ystaas and Kelly McKnight, there were four official candidates for voters to choose from.

Of those, Zachary Fleming and Jacob Dauenhauer were the top vote-getters and will officially join the city commission at the next regular commission meeting in July.

Fleming was the top finisher with 31.69 percent of the vote, while Dauenhauer finished right behind with 30.56 percent. Only eight votes separated the top two, as they received 225 and 217 votes, respectively.

Finishing third and fourth were Ben Makay and Larry Kraft, having received 20.85 percent and 10.99 percent of the vote, respectively. There were also 42 write-in votes for various individuals.

Commission President Stu Richter won his uncontested re-election bid with 92 percent of the vote, and 94.86 percent of voters passed a measure to continue publishing city commission minutes in the New Rockford Transcript.

For the two open seats on the New Rockford City Park Board, Judith Allmaras – the only official candidate – got the most votes with 329, followed by Evan Guler with 18 write-in votes.

Meanwhile, there was only one race for a seat on the county commission this year, and three candidates ran for the position, with the top two vote-getters advancing to the general election in November.

Joanna Larson took first place with 36.61 percent of the vote (246 votes) and Glenda Collier came in second with 34.52 percent (232 votes). The only candidate not moving on to the general election is David Schaefer, who finished in third with 28.72 percent (193 votes).

The other big decision facing Eddy County voters was whether to allow the county to levy and collect an additional tax of 20 mills for road and bridge purposes.

The money would have initially gone to the Brantford Road project, but 60.39 percent of voters chose not to allow the tax increase. Only 39.61 percent voted in favor of the measure.

Meanwhile, there was also a hotly contested race to represent District 14 in Bismarck. Long-time Republican incumbents Jerry Klein, Robin Weisz and Jon Nelson managed to stave off a primary challenge from the convention-endorsed candidates – Larry Danduran, Karissa Grothe and Jason Steidl.

Klein won his race for District 14 senator over Karissa Grothe with 59.42 percent of the vote, while Nelson and Weisz were the top two finishers for District 14 representative with 28.71 and 25.98 percent of the vote, respectively.

Steidl and Danduran didn’t finish far behind, as Steidl garnered 24.06 percent and Danduran 21.22 percent.

For the incumbents, this election was their first time asking for votes in Eddy County.

Nearly 60 percent of Eddy County voters chose Klein to represent them in the N.D. Senate, while Weisz earned 27.57 percent of the vote in Eddy County for D14 representative.

Danduran, a resident of New Rockford, was the only challenger favored by Eddy County voters, who came in second place with 25.51 percent of Eddy County’s vote and narrowly beat out Nelson.

Klein, Weisz and Nelson will now take on Democrats Mark Nelson, Cathy Jelsing and Jessica Hawkes in the general election this November. Nelson, Jelsing and Hawkes were the only Democratic-NPL candidates running to represent District 14.

Zooming out to look at statewide elections in North Dakota, it was U.S. Representative Kelly Armstrong who took a commanding victory over Tammy Miller for the GOP nomination for governor, with 72.76 percent of the vote. Armstrong also won the Eddy County vote, but by a slimmer margin with 58.5 percent of the vote.

Armstrong will challenge Democrat Merill Piepkorn – who ran uncontested in his primary – for N.D. Governor in the general election.

Meanwhile, Julie Fedorchak came out on top in the Republican primary for U.S. House with 45.93 percent of the vote. Rick Becker and Cara Mund came in second and third, with 29.57 percent and 19.53 percent of the vote, respectively. Fedorchak also won the support of 39.15 percent of Eddy County voters.

The Democratic-NPL primary for U.S. House was won by Trygve Hammer with 73.34 percent of the vote, an overwhelming victory over Roland Clifford Reimers.

The only statewide measure on the ballot was to implement age limits for congressional candidates, which passed with 60.88 percent of the statewide vote. The measure was also supported by 67.07 percent of Eddy County voters.

For all the results from this year’s primary election, go to results.sos.nd.gov.