(Editor’s note: Because of an early news deadline of 5 a.m. Nov. 9, a story of vote totals could not be written for the Nov. 11 issue. The following story is based on vote totals as of Nov. 14.)
by Dennis Dalman
editor@thenewsleasders.com
Sartell voters gave the nod in the Nov. 8 general election to Mike Chisum and Ryan Fitzthum for city council, and voters in the Sartell-St. Stephen School District re-elected Lesa Kramer, Jason Nies and Pam Raden to the school board.
Joe Perske, a former Sartell mayor, was elected to Stearns County Commissioner District 2, defeating incumbent Mark Bromenschenkel, also a Sartell resident. Perske defeated Bromenschenkel on a vote of 9,623 to 6,136.
Coinciding with a local and national win, Donald Trump also won in Sartell as the choice for president of the United States, with Trump taking 4,204 votes to Clinton’s 2,574 for Clinton in Sartell.
Also re-elected for the fourth consecutive time is Sartell resident, State Rep. Tim O’Driscoll for House District 13B. He defeated DFL challenger Matthew Crouse by a vote of 14,882 to 6,465.
Fitzthum received 4,444 votes, and Chisum garnered 3,977. Timothy Held, 2,835 votes; and Ryan Golembecki Sr., 1,558 votes, were not successful in their bids for city council seats.
Vote totals for the school-board winners were 6,433 for Nies, 5,717 for Raden and 5,703 for Kramer.
Sartell voters also helped pick the winner of the U.S. Sixth Congressional District race, Republican Rep. Tom Emmer who defeated DFL challenger David Snyder by a vote total of 235,531 to 123,122.
And voters’ top choice for the State Senate District 13 race was also the overall winner, incumbent Republican Sen. Michelle Fischbach, who garnered 29,235 votes to DFL contender Michael Willemsen with 13,338 votes.
Sartell and St. Stephen voters in the Nov. 8 general election helped elect the same candidates that won at large for the U.S. presidency, as well as regional seats.
President-elect Trump won handily over Clinton in Sartell by a nearly two-to-one margin – 4,204 to 2,574. There were also some votes cast for third-party candidates.
St. Stephen
St. Stephen Mayor Cindy VanderWeyst, running unopposed, was re-elected with 394 votes, and St. Stephen City Council incumbents were also re-elected – Jeff Blenkush with 339 votes and Thomas Vouk with 350.
St. Stephen voters preferred Trump as president by a vote total of 387 for him and 58 for Clinton.
St. Wendel Townhip
In St. Wendel Township, voters also went for Trump – 913 to Clinton’s 371.
LeSauk Township
Le Sauk Township, Shawn Omann received 408 votes to John Krehbiel’s 391 for the township supervisor Seat 3 position. Incumbent town clerk Marlyce Plante was re-elected with 733 votes.
Regional results
Although Clinton won Minnesota – but just barely by about 2 percentage points — Trump won handily by a two-to-one margin in Minnesota’s Congressional Sixth District in which Republican Emmer was re-elected to the U.S. House of Representatives by a vote of 235,531, with 123,122 votes going to DFL challenger Snyder.
Trump and other Republican candidates fared very well in all three area counties – Stearns, Benton and Sherburne. In all three counties, Trump won handily by a two-to-one margin or better. In the most heavily populated city, St. Cloud, 15 of the city’s 22 precincts showed wins for Trump – seven for Clinton, five of those pro-Clinton precincts in Ward 1, which is in the college area.
National results
Nationally, Trump won more than enough electoral votes to win: 306 (he needed 270 to win). Clinton won 232 electoral votes. Although at last count, Clinton won the national popular vote by a one- to two-point margin over Trump, she did not win the election because she failed to get enough electoral votes state to state (270).
Trump and Clinton each received about 60 million votes at last count, with a slight edge for Clinton. Absentee and mail-in votes are still being counted, mainly in the states of California, New York and Washington. However, those votes will not change the results of the election because Clinton already won in those states, along with those states’ electoral votes.
