Primary election yields few surprises, fewer contested races
By Willis Patenaude, Times-Register
The June 7 primary election saw 2,023 Clayton County residents head to the polls. The overwhelming majority—67.3 percent—of ballots were cast by people registered with the Republican Party, while 32.6 percent were registered Democrats.
The unofficial results yielded few surprises, outside of one race on the Democratic side of the ballot, where county residents favored the retired three-star admiral Michael Franken over former congresswoman Abby Finkenauer. Franken received 386 votes, compared to Finkenauer’s 262, and won statewide with 55 percent of the vote, defeating Finkenauer by over 23,000 votes. Franken will try to unseat longtime Senator Chuck Grassley, who has held the position since 1981, in the November general election.
Grassley also faced a challenger in the primary, in Jim Carlin, who received 22.4 percent of the vote in Clayton County, while Grassley got 77.4 percent. Statewide, Carlin performed a little better, at 26 percent, but Grassley easily secured the nomination with 73 percent of the vote.
State Senator Liz Mathis, running unopposed, easily won the Democratic nomination for Iowa’s U.S. House District 2 and will face Republican incumbent Ashley Hinson, who also ran unopposed.
In the race for governor, both incumbent Republican Kim Reynolds and Democratic challenger Deidre DeJear ran unopposed, with Reynolds receiving 1,278 votes out of the 1,363 cast in Clayton County, while DeJear got 603 out of 660 votes.
For state representative of District 64, Anne Osmundson ran unopposed for the Republican nomination and received 1,240 votes in Clayton County. No Democrats were included on the ballot.
In the most local—and contested—election, three Republicans were vying for the shot at two seats on the Clayton County Board of Supervisors. Incumbent Steve Doeppke faced challengers Adam Meyer and Doug Reimer in the primary.
As results came in, a calculation snafu had Reimer winning the nomination outright, but after a recalculation, Clayton County Auditor Jennifer Garms informed the Times-Register “both Doug Reimer and Steve Doeppke met the threshold of 388 votes to secure the nomination.”
According to the unofficial results, Reimer received 945 votes (42.64 percent) and Doeppke earned 671 (30.28 percent). Meyer finished with 595 votes, or 26.85 percent.
Reimer and Doeppke will face Democratic nominee Lester Simons, who ran unopposed, in the general election.