It's getting later in the evening, and votes are still being tallied around the region.
First of all, the wait remains on results of races for Worthington mayor and two Worthington City Council seats. The same goes for the four-way race for the three available seats on the Worthington ISD 518 Board of Education.
Minnesota statewide races include governor, attorney general, secretary of state and state auditor. With 36.8% of votes counted (1,510 of 4,103 precincts), incumbent Minnesota DFL Gov. Tim Walz is ahead of Republican challenger Scott Jensen by a 58% to 39% margin. In the other races, DFLers are also in front, though each of their advantages have been diminishing. DFLer Keith Ellison has 56% of the vote in the matchup for attorney general against GOP candidate Jim Schultz. The current secretary of state, Democrat Steve Simon, has 60% of the vote and leads Republican Kim Crockett. State Auditor Juile Blaha of the DFL is being challenged Republican Ryan Wilson; she leads with 52.4% of the vote.
In southwest Minnesota, voters also made choices for offices that include Minnesota House representatives in District 21A and District 21B and the District 1 U.S. House of Representatives seat.
In District 21B, it's Republican Marj Fogelman against Democrat Michael Heidelberger, and with 37 of 83 precincts in, it's Fogelman with 67.4%. In District 21A, 86 of 127 precincts are in, and incumbent GOP Rep. Joe Schomacker leads DFLer Pat Baustian with 73.3% of the vote.
In the U.S. House race between Republican Brad Finstad and Jeff Ettinger, it's currently Finstad with 57 percent of the vote with 263 of 749 precincts reporting.
In Iowa, meanwhile, voters were choosing their preferred candidates in many of the same statewide races. Up for election as well were one of the state's two seats in the U.S. Senate and the state's District 4 seat in the U.S. House. State In the U.S. Senate race, longtime incumbent Republican Charles Grassley has moved ahead of Michael Franken by more than 121,000 votes with 78 of 99 counties reporting. For the House seat, Republican Randy Feenstra also has kept a sizeable advantage. Gov. Kim Reynolds also appears poised to win a new four-year term.
Many other election contests, of course, are ongoing in the several other communities that are part of our coverage area.
