Two of three supervisor incumbents defeated

MONTGOMERY COUNTY – Two out of three incumbents on the Montgomery County Board of Supervisors were defeated at the primary election Tuesday night. Steven Ratcliff was the lone survivor, edging Steven Berendes 168-151 for the GOP nomination in District 1. Challengers Joshua Wiig and Mark Peterson won the Republican nomination in Districts 2 and 4. Wiig beat incumbent Karen Blue 141-113, while Peterson received 251 votes in a three-man race that included Brian Coughlin (117 votes) and incumbent Randall Tye (40). With the absence of a Democratic nominee in any of the supervisor races, the only way a GOP-nominated candidate can lose in the general election is to an independent or write-in candidate. In the race for U.S. Senate, former Montgomery County Auditor Joni Ernst unsurprisingly dominated the vote totals. Ernst received 1,385 votes (90.2 percent), followed by Mark Jacobs with 80 and Sam Clovis with 41. Scott Schaben and Matt Whitaker received 20 and 18 votes, respectively. Jacobs, considered the only serious challenger to Ernst for the GOP nomination, has already conceded the election. Ernst will now face Bruce Braley in the November general election for Democrat Tom Harkin’s seat in the U.S. Senate. In the race for U.S. Congress, Monte Shaw received the most votes in Montgomery County, 403, or 30.4 percent. Rober Cramer was second with 338, followed by Matt Schultz (293 votes), David Young (198), Brad Zaun (68) and Joe Grandanette (22). Thirty-five percent of the vote is needed to secure a party’s nomination at the primary. If no one candidate receives the 35 percent needed vote, a candidate will be selected at the upcoming state Republican convention. According to the unofficial results, 1,638 of 6,730 registered voters in Montgomery County cast ballots, or 24.3 percent.