A hometown newspaper with a local office, local owners & lots of local news
A hometown newspaper with a local office, local owners & lots of local news
Carlton school board members ousted; Dotseth wins re-election; Trump wins in close local tally
Voters lined up at Cloquet City Hall late in the afternoon on Election Day Tuesday. About 90 percent of eligible voters in the county did so, nearly as many voters as in 2020.
Carlton County election worker Laune Ludemann checks in ballots and more from a poll worker Tuesday at the Historic County Courthouse in Carlton.
With all of Carlton County's 39 precincts reporting, the unofficial tallies from the 2024 general election brought some interesting results, including a win in the county for President-elect Donald Trump, who did not win Minnesota. The Republican was the top vote-getter - 50.1 percent to Vice President Kamala Harris' 47.6 percent - in a county that had nearly 90-percent voter turnout with more than 20,000 people submitting ballots.
Voter turnout nearly matched the 92-percent mark made in 2020 in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic, a high mark for voter participation in the county.
The purple results in Carlton County veered from very blue St. Louis County to the north and red counties to the south and west. Local numbers mirrored the close division in politics across the country.
The results won't be official until after they are canvassed, but changes are rare after reporting.
In other races:
• Two incumbent Carlton school board members - chairwoman Julianne Emerson and Eryn Szymczak - are out. Ryan Leonzal, an appointed incumbent, and challengers Dan Solarz and Ben Nilsen are in.
• Minnesota Rep. Jeff Dotseth retained his House seat in St. Paul, defeating Democrat Pete Radosevich by 664 votes, 51.9 percent to 48.4.
• Sarah Buhs and Dan Reed won in the contested Carlton County Commissioners races, with Buhs defeating Caleb Dunlap 55 to 44 percent while Reed defeated Alex French 54 to 45 percent.
• The mayor's race in Wrenshall is tied. Incumbent Gary Butala and challenger Jeff Bloom each have exactly 143 votes each, which will require a recount.
• On the Barnum school board, incumbents Louis Bonneville, Patrick Poirier and Beth Dinger will be joined by challenger Mike Orn on the board. Stephanie Ferrin was not re-elected.
• In Thomson Township's only contested seat, 20-year-old Nathan Barta won in a landslide, with 50 percent of the vote, defeating Jaryn Edblad and John Bergman, who had 27 and 22.6 percent of 2,696 votes cast.
• U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar won re-election statewide and in Carlton County by wide margins.
• U.S. Rep. Pete Stauber also breezed to re-election, getting 58.3 percent of the vote in the Eighth Congressional District against Jen Schultz. Stauber had 52.2 percent of the vote in Carlton County.
More coverage of the election begins on Page 3.
