Three New, Yet Familiar Faces Elected to the Council; Incumbents, Hardy Elected to School Board

The results are in and Dana Graham is Northfield's new mayor.

Graham received 4,947 votes and defeated Councilor Rhonda Pownell, who received 3,461 votes.

"First of all I want to thank Rhonda for running a very positive campaign and I look forward to working with her on the Council," Graham said when told the results by Northfield Patch. "I'm going to work very hard to show the people that their votes tonight are justified. We're going to do some good things in the next four years."

Graham previously served on the Northfield City Council and was defeated by 13 votes in the 2008 At-Large race.

In the Council races, David Ludescher narrowly defeated Betsey Buckheit on Tuesday night for the At-Large council position. With nearly 7,800 votes cast, Ludescher beat Buckheit by 29 votes. Ludescher had previous served on the Council as well. Because the separation of Lud

Because Ludescher and Buckheit's totals are within one-half of 1 percent of eachother, Buckheit could request a recount. On Tuesday night, however, Buckheit said she didn't believe a recount would gain her at least 30 votes.

David DeLong, who previously served two terms on the City Council, won in the Second Ward, beating Frank Balster 56.30 percent to 43.15 percent.

Incumbent Councilor Erica Zweifel received 1,324 votes compared Jon Denison's 558 votes in the Third Ward race.

     Full results are below

In the Northfield School Board race, incumbents Ellen Iverson, Anne Maple and Noel Stratmoen were re-elected, all received more than 21 percent of the vote. Rob Hardy wasn't far behind with 19.37 of the voting, claimed the fourth and final seat. Dan Cupersmith received 13.86 of the vote.

"I'm looking forward to joining the rest of the school board in ensuring that the Northfield schools remain among the best in the state," Hardy told Patch. "It's a tremendous honor and a privilege to serve the youth of this community. I can't wait to get started."

In the Dundas City Council race, Nathan Ryan and Chad Pribyl were the top two vote getters over Tiana Wells.

All winners will be sworn into their respective offices in January.

You can also visit other pages on Northfield Patch to see:

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* Denotes incumbent

Northfield Mayoral

Northfield At-Large

Northfield Second Ward

Northfield Third Ward

Northfield School Board

Precincts reporting: 24/24 | (Four elected)

Dundas City Council 

(Two elected)

All results were obtained from the Minnesota Secretary of State's website or City of Northfield website.

A look back

With a historical 2008 election that drove people to the polls in record numbers, Barack Obama won the presidency and more than 9,300 Northfielders voted that year, electing Mary Rossing as their mayor. 

That year, Erica Zweifel was elected to represent the Third Ward with 67.32 percent of the vote. She seeks re-election this year against former councilor Jon Denison. Dana Graham, who faces Councilor Rhonda Pownell in the mayoral race, lost by 14 votes in 2008 for the At-Large seat.  Betsey Buckheit, who's seeking the At-Large seat this year and faces David Ludescher, won the Second Ward in 2008 with 63.69 percent of the vote.

In 2010, more than 6,100 people voted in the At-Large Council race that saw Pownell collect more than 58 percent of the vote.

In this year's primary, Graham collected 53 percent of the vote and Pownell collected 32 percent of the vote to move on to Election Day. In the At-Large race, Buckheit (43) and Ludescher (37) advanced over Joe Gasior (20).

In the 2008 school board race, Ellen Iverson received the second most votes and Anne Maple received the third most votes to win two of the four four-year terms. Rob Hardy came in fifth out of eight candidates that year. In 2010, Noel Stratmoen ran unopposed for a two-year term.