Dayton Does Not Carry Olmsted County

Most of the incumbents in yesterday’s election in the Rochester area survived challenges and will return to office next year.  One of them was Mayor Ardell Brede, who beat challenger Cindy Maves by a margin of 60 - 40 percent.  But in the other high profile local race involving an incumbent it was no contest.   Olmsted County Sheriff  Dave Mueller was blown out by department Captain Kevin Torgerson, who won by 17,000 votes.

Two other incumbents lost their races - Rochester City Councilmember Bruce Snyder was defeated by Nick Campion and School Board member Terry Throndson was upended by Jean Marvin, losing by about 2,000 votes

Nels Pierson won the race for the Rochester state House seat that had been held by Mike Benson. And he will head to St. Paul as a member of the new Republican majority in the House that will be in control when the 2015 session begins next year.

Governor Dayton was re-elected to a new term but one county he did not carry was Olmsted.  Despite his strong support for the DMC initiative and the Mayo Civic Center project, he came in second in the county to Republican challenger Jeff Johnson, who had about 2200 more votes.

First District Congressman Tim Walz was re-elected but will remain in the minority in the U.S. House.  Democratic Senator Al Franken was also re-elected but he will now be in the minority as Republicans have taken control of the U.S. Senate.

Voter turnout in Olmsted County was just under 60 percent as a total of 50,727 ballots were cast.  The county has nearly 86,000 registered voters.

Here are all the results.

In other races:  there will be some new sheriffs in the surrounding area. Dodge County Sheriff Jim Jensen lost to Scott Rose by about 400 votes;

Freeborn County Sheriff Bob Kindler lost to Kurt Freitag by 1,000 votes;

Tom Kaase  - who retired yesterday as a Rochester police officer due to pension reasons - was elected sheriff in Fillmore County;  Ron Ganrude beat Bill Spitzer for Winona County Sheriff.  Wabasha  County Sheriff Rod Bartsch was easily re-elected to another term by defeating Scott O’Hara by more than 3,000 votes.

Republican Tom Emmer won in the state's 6th Congressional District, taking over the seat vacated by Michele Bachmann. Emmer lost to Mark Dayton in a very close race in 2010. Emmer will be a member of the majority when the Congress begins its new session next year.

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