Nearly exactly two-thirds of Adair County's registered voters turned out at the polls on Election Day last Tuesday to elect the county, state and nation's leaders for the next stretch of time. That totals 66.17 percent of voters, or 3,519 total voters.
Auditor Mindy Schaefer, who oversaw the election along with her staff, said the event went very well. Results were returned to the courthouse in a timely manner that night.
"The election went very well. We had very minor little things going on, but nothing significant as far as problems. We were out of here by 10:30 p.m. and it went pretty good," Schaefer said. "I thought our poll workers rocked it to get the results here so quickly. Absentee, we had five more than four years ago."
At the state level, Ray "Bubba" Sorensen (R-Greenfield) defeated Warren Varley (D-Stuart), receiving 7,648 votes to 4,613 (62 percent), in the race for Iowa House District 20, a seat that until now has been kept by Clel Baudler (R-Greenfield), who has retired. In Adair County, Sorensen received 66 percent of the votes.
"I'm obviously happy with the results and am thankful House District 20 put their faith in me to represent them. The biggest thing [going in] is to keep an open mind, to be willing to work with everybody. I've gotta listen to all of my constituents and see where the pulse of the district is at," Sorensen said. "The big issues we were hearing as we door knocked were healthcare, education and staying within the budget, keeping taxes manageable. All of that stays in play. Beyond that, it's geting down there and getting to work."
Sorensen had high praise for what Baudler has accomplished in his career.
"Those are some big shoes to fill. You never questioned where Clel stood. Agree with him or disagree with him, he was always a straight shooter and always an honest legislator," Sorensen said. "I hope I can make this district as proud as Clel did."
Incumbent Kim Reynolds (R-Osceola) received 64.2 percent of the vote for Governor from Adair County voters and defeated her opponent, Democrat Fred Hubbell (D-Des Moines) to stay in office.
From a statewide scope, Paul Pate (R) defeated Deidre DeJear (D) to retain his Secretary of State position. Tom Miller (D) was voted Attorney General and Republican incumbent Mike Naig survied a narrow race against Democrat Tim Gannon to remain Iowa's Secretary of Agriculture.
In local races for the Adair County Board of Supervisors, it was Democrat incumbent Jodie Hoadley defeating her challenger, Doug Davidson, 354 to 273 to keep her District 4SE seat.
"I'm glad that I won. I made a decision back in August that I was going to quit my full-time job at Fareway and concentrate on the re-election campaign," Hoadley said. "It was a lot of hard work and I had a lot of help and support from a lot of people in my district or I don't think I would've won. I want to continue to work on improving Adair County and the situations here and move forward. I'm very much looking forward to the next four years."
Steven Shelley, Democrat incumbent running uncontested for his Board of Supervisors District 2NE, received 488 of the 527 votes to remain a county supervisor. He's also excited for the opportunities in front of him for his next four years.
"I'm just happy to be re-elected to serve the people," said Shelley, who will start his fourth term in January. "Goals would be to better serve the people with more improvements to the county and to lower taxes. The county taxes, I think, have been raised just a nickel since I've been in office. I want to lower it. We have some capital assets coming into the county and that's where I feel we need to go."
In other county offices, incumbent Republicans Brenda L. Wallace, Janelle Schneider and Clint Hight all won landslide, uncontested races for County Treasurer, County Recorder and County Attorney offices, respectively.
Pam Wiggins received 2,879 (96.8 percent) votes to be on the County Public Hospital Trustees Board and Barbara Kalbach, who received 2,613 votes (98.4 percent, was appointed to that board to fill a vacancy. Billi Shelley, Sondra A. Baudler, Beth Davenport, Connie Drake and Gregory Lilly were voted to the County Agricultural Extension Council.
Axne defeats Young
Though Adair County voters gave incumbent U.S. Congressman David Young (R-Van Meter) the nod 2,202 to 1,067 to remain in office, he was defeated by Cindy Axne (D-West Des Moines) after Axne was supported wildly by those in the 3rd District's populated central Iowa region. Both Axne and Young made campaign stops late in the game in Greenfield.