District 28 recount yields same result

It required a recount, but on Friday it became official.

The Republican primary race in District 28 to see who will run on the general election ticket for the North Dakota House of Representatives has yielded the same end result as initially posted following the June 12 primary.

Incumbents Rep. Michael Brandenburg, R-Edgeley, and Rep. William Kretschmar, R-Venturia, were the two highest vote-getters with 2,051 and 1,468 votes respectively after the State Canvassing Board confirmed the automatic recount, according to Jim Silrum, North Dakota deputy secretary of state.

“The recount didn’t change anything except for small individual vote totals in terms of the final results,” Silrum said.

Brandenburg and Kretschmar will now advance to the Nov. 6 general election, at which they will run against the top two District 28 Democratic vote-getters in Joan Hoffman and Austin Wald, who ran unopposed in the June primary.

The Republican race for the second highest vote total was even closer than originally counted, however, according to Silrum.

Initial results confirmed in June by the State Canvassing Board showed Kretschmar 19 votes ahead of third-highest vote-getter Jeffrey Magrum of Hazelton, N.D.

Friday’s official results, however, showed Kretschmar earned just nine more votes than Magrum.

The top two vote-getters in the Nov. 6 general election out of the four candidates — Brandenburg, Kretschmar, Hoffman and Wald — will take the two District 28 House seats.

Sun reporter Brian Willhide can be reached at 701-952-8454 or by email at bwillhide@jamestownsun.com

Tags: news, election, politics