In Tuesday’s Iowa State Senate District 1 election to fill a vacancy, Republican Dave Rowley came away with a lopsided victory over Democrat Mark Allen Lemke.
The Iowa Secretary of State Office reported Wednesday that Rowley garnered 2,690 of 3,559 votes cast, or 75.58%. Lemke earned 864 votes, or 24.28%.
Rowley will take over the seat formerly held by fellow Spirit Lake Republican Zach Whiting, who resigned in late October to take a job with the Texas Public Policy Foundation. Whiting was in the third year of his first four-year term.
Rowley will serve the remainder of the term in District 1, which incorporates Osceola, Lyon, Dickinson, Clay and Paolo Alto counties and includes the cities of Spirit Lake, Spencer, Emmetsburg, Sibley and Rock Rapids. Rowley is an insurance agent at Blum and Leonard Associates and president of the Independent Insurance Agents of Iowa, and the former chair of the Dickinson County GOP. His challenger, Lemke, is a retired business owner who worked many years with General Electric.
Rowley will need to run for re-election in 2022 in the redrawn Senate District 5, which will include a portion of Clay County and all of Dickinson, Emmet, Kossuth, Palo Alto and Winnebago counties.
