King, Johnson come out of Austin mayoral primary
Published 11:24 pm Tuesday, August 13, 2024
Steve King
Bradley Johnson
Rebecca Waller
Miguel Garate
Paul Fischer
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Ward 1 and 3 races will see mix of old and new faces running in November
Austin Mayor Steve King will get the chance to run for a second term come this November and will run against newcomer Bradley Johnson.
King and Johnson were the top two to come out of Tuesday’s primary with 688 and 420 votes respectively. Current at-large council member Jeff Austin, who was defeated by King in 2020, came in third with 404 votes.
In total, 1,512 votes were cast in the mayoral primary according to the report released Tuesday night by the Mower County Auditor-Treasurer’s office.
Meanwhile, in Ward 1, the tightly contested four-person race saw former council member Rebecca Waller and another newcomer, Miguel Garate, come out on top with 154 and 111 votes out of 459 votes cast.
Garate was just one vote in front of Patrick Lange with 110 votes while Varinh Van Vugt finished with 84 votes.
The winner of this race in November will fill the empty seat left by current board member Geoff Baker who was appointed in 2022.
In Austin’s only other primary, Ward 3 incumbent, Paul Fischer, easily claimed the top spot with over half of the 412 votes at 273. He will face Brian Prentis who claimed 87 votes.
Alexander T. Marshall had 52 votes despite suspending his campaign late last week.
On the national stage, Sen. Amy Klobuchar won the Democratic nomination with just over 94% of the vote with all but one county having reported in at the posting of this story. She will face the Republican winner Royce White, who had claimed just over 38.5% of the vote ahead of Joe Fraser with just over 29%.
While Klobuchar easily won Mower County’s vote, Fraser won the Republican vote in the county over White, 373 to 347.
In the United States Representative District 1 primary, current representative Brad Finstad will face Democrat Rachel Bohman. Bohman was running unopposed while Finstand carried over 90% of the Republican vote.
