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In Tuesday’s balloting results for Chisago County the theme appears to have been return the incumbents.  The candidates seeking re-election, almost to the person, won.  The county went with incumbents nearly up and down the ticket-- from  supporting President Trump and Mike Pence to bringing back two of three members of the Chisago Lakes School Board out of a field of seven candidates.

Long time Chisago County Board Commissioner Rick Greene won his bid for re-election defeating challenger Nick Brehm.  

Greene took seven of the eight voting precincts in his commissioner district.  The exception was the City of Shafer, where Brehm is on the city council.  Franconia is the largest voting block in Greene’s district and the tally was 640 Greene to Brehm’s 289 votes. Sunrise twsp. gave Greene 585 votes to 484 for Brehm. Taylors Falls voted 362 for Greene to 182 Brehm  Shafer Twsp.A  went 399 for Greene to Brehm’s 178.  The smaller township precinct “B’ went 13 for Greene and nine for Brehm.

Incumbent Commissioner Mike Robinson had  no opposition.  

George McMahon did not seek re-election and Marlys Dunne and Katie Roche filed for the seat. In a very close race Dunne came out ahead as of this week’s results. She had 3,402 to Katie Roche’s 3,374.

The precinct that put Dunne over the top was Chisago City, where she had  72 more votes than Roche. Roche won in Lindstrom balloting 1,336 to 1,290 for Dunne--and got two fewer votes than Dunne in the township, 718 to 720.

U.S. Rep. Pete Stauber, R-U.S. House District 8-- won re-election handily.

Challenger Quinn Nystrom received 142,708 votes to Stauber’s 215,115. Results were still coming in for the large congressional district at press deadline but it was assumed Stauber would come out ahead.
 
In statewide races:
Senator Mark Koran, North Branch,  was returned to office in St. Paul.  Districtwide the tally was 32,324 to challenger Joshua Fike’s 16,296.  
In the Chisago County senate district voting Koran got 20,688 to 10,732 for Fike.

The county is represented at the state House by three officeholders: Anne Neu, of North Branch, Brian Johnson, Cambridge and Bob Dettmer, of Forest Lake;  all of whom are Republicans and were returned to office.

~ Neu was opposed by Katie Malchow.  

In the House District overall, Neu garnered 15,358 votes to Malchow’s 9.330.  

~ Rep. Brian Johnson, who has a sliver on the west side of Chisago County and into Isanti, Johnson won with 16,244 overall and 4,486 in the Chisago County portion.  Challenger Renae Berg got 7,513 overall with 2,062 in the portions in Chisago County.

~ Rep. Bob Dettmer won over challenger Ann Mozey, 15,484 to 11, 259.  The portion of the district in Chisago County is relatively small and in Chisago County balloting Dettmer took 1,073 votes to Mozey’s 625.

In local races:
For school Board Lori Berg and Brenda Carlson won re-election for Chisago Lakes ISD 2144 and Jeff Lindeman filled the third open seat.  Berg had 4,623, Carlson 4,092, Lindeman 6,219.  The other candidates were: Peterson 3,162; Wojcik 2,782, Zais 1,844, Stilp 1,717 and there were a surprising 130 write-ins.

The North Branch School Board had three seats also on the ballot but the incumbents all ran unopposed. Tanya Giese had 4,900 votes, Heather Osagiede 4,227 and Tim MacMillan 4,827.

The municipal races results included:
North Branch re-elected Jim swenson for mayor-- 3,693 votes to Brian Voss’ 1,117.  Two council seats on the ballot had only two candidates. Neider got re-elected with 3,377 and newcomer Amanda Darwin received 2,859. A third council seat is vacant as the result of a resignation, but is being filled by appointment this month.

Center City has a new mayor-- or rather the return of an old one, Jill Behnke won 272 to Ethan Karwand's 89 votes.  Behnke vacated her council seat to run.  Former mayor Mark Wolcott stays in government getting elected to council with 229 votes and the second council seat was won by Ryan Pease with 148 votes. Scott Anderson got 125 votes.

In Wyoming there was a contest for Mayor, with incumbent Lisa Iverson being the victor. She got 2,634 votes. Challenger Nick Kentros got 1,892.  The city council seats went to incumbent Linda Nanko-Yeager and to Brett Ohnstad. Yeager got 2,321 votes, Ohnstad got 2,320.  Candidate Andrew Buccanero got 1,912.

Taylors Falls Mayor Mike Buchite ran unopposed. He got 498 votes.  Two council seats were on the ballot and went to Larry Julik Heine, 336 and to Troy Aanonsen 385. Juli Hobson was also on the ballot and she got 270 votes.

Rush City seated its incumbent Dan Dahlberg with 899 votes and for council it was Mike Louzek and Tom Schneider, 572 and 701 respectively.

Lindstrom’s Mayor Kevin Stenson was not challenged and got 2,286 votes. Two seats for council on the ballot went to Laurie Burington and Linda Merkel and a special election to fill a seat went to Scott Hildebrand.

Chisago City did not have its mayor on the ballot this cycle.  Two council seats went to the unopposed incumbents Jeremy Dresel and Marie Rivers.

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