As usual, Cook County had a high voter turnout with 91 percent of eligible voters casting ballots. While the result for the United States’ presidency wasn’t known on November 4, some exciting local races concluded with many of the contests close.
One hundred percent of the counties 13 precincts reported, but none of the election results are official until the canvassing board meets on November 10 to certify the results.
All ballots can still come in for a week and be counted that have a November 3 postmark, said Auditor/Treasurer Braidy Powers.
County commissioner races
In her first run for office, Stacey Hawkins defeated incumbent Cook County Commissioner Board Chair Myron Bursheim for the District 2 Cook County commissioner position. Hawkins received 352 votes to 247 for Bursheim.
With 283 votes for Paula Marie Powell and 202 votes for Robert Svaleson, each will move on to compete for the District 1 Cook County commissioner position vacated by Robert (Bobby) Deschampe after Deschampe won a position to lead the Grand Portage Tribal Council last June. Clark Bloomquist finished with 160 votes in the primary. Only the top two vote getters move on to the February 2021 special election.
Two newcomers, Ann Sullivan and Dean Berglund, were competing to see who would represent District 4 and fill the seat now held by Heidi DooKirk, who decided not to run for reelection. Sullivan ended up winning a close race 476 to 406.
Soil and Water Supervisor
Three candidates ran unopposed to fill openings on the Soil and Water board. In District 1, David Grosshuech received 2,637 votes while District 3 candidate Joan Morrison got 2,613, and District 5 candidate Jon Twiest picked up 2,747 votes.
Grand Marais
Grand Marais Mayor Jay Arrowsmith Decoux won a third term, defeating City Councilor Kelly Swearingen 448 to 405. There were four write-in votes in this race.
Craig Schulte and Michael Garry were the top two vote getters in the city council race. Schulte, a current city councilor, received 458 votes while Garry picked up 337. Diane Greeley received 307 votes and Michael Smieja 212 votes with the top two vote-getters winning seats on the council.
ISD 166
Two board seats were up for grabs on the ISD 166 school board.
Incumbent Carrie Jansen ran unopposed in District 2 to retain her school board seat. Carrie received 420 votes with 44 votes cast for write-ins.
Two write-in candidates, Stephanie Radloff and Lindsey Gau, ran to fill the District 4 vacancy that will be left by Sissy Lunde at the end of her term. Lunde decided not to run for reelection.
Radloff came out the winner in a close finish, tallying 209 votes to 201 for Gau.
Cook County Hospital District
Running unopposed, Mary Sanders picked up 438 votes and will be the newest member on the North Shore Health hospital board. Mary will represent District 2.
Long-time incumbent Kay Olson, who was also running unopposed, received 596 votes to remain the District 4 representative on the hospital board.
State and region races
In the State Representative 3A race, incumbent Democratic-Farmer-Labor candidate Rob Ecklund defeated Republican Thomas Manninen 12,540 votes to 11,367.
Tom Bakk (DFL) garnered 26,641 votes to 21,532 for Republican challenger Christopher Hogan to retain his position as the State Senator representative for District 3. Neither Bakk nor Ecklund lost in any of Cook County’s 13 voting precincts.
Running for a second congressional term in District 8, U.S. Congressman Pete Stauber (GOP) received 215,115 votes to defeat his DFL challenger Quinn Nystrom who garnered 142,70,8 votes. Judith Schwartzbacker, the Grassroots-Legalize Cannabis candidate, received 21,434 votes.
In the race to see who would become the next president, the DFL ticket of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris won Minnesota with 52.41 percent of the vote to Donald Trump and Michael Pence team, which garnered 45.28 percent with 99.8 percent of the votes counted. Nationally, some states had not counted all of their ballots and the results of who would be the next president weren’t known at the time of this publication.
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