Special election announced to replace Soderberg in HD 5

By Bob Eschliman
Editor

 

With the resignation of state Rep. Chuck Soderberg (R-Le Mars) to take over as executive vice president of the Iowa Association of Electric Cooperatives, Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad announced Tuesday a special election will be held Tuesday, Nov. 3, in House District 5.

House District 5 covers most of Plymouth County and more than a third of Woodbury County in northwestern Iowa. It includes the communities of Struble, Craig, Akron, Westfield, Brunsville, Le Mars, Oyens, Remsen, Merrill, Hinton, Kingsley, Pierson, Correctionville, Moville, and Lawton, as well as the unincorporated city of Climbing Hill.

House District 5 Republicans will hold a special nominating convention 7 p.m. Monday, Sept. 28, in the lower level of the Farm Bureau building, located at 28 Second Street SW, in Le Mars. Voting delegates at the convention will be the county central committee members from each precinct. If both delegates are present, each will represent one-half of a vote; if only one is present, he or she will carry a full vote. Delegate votes cannot be made by proxy or transferred.

Nominations will not require seconds, and each nominee will be given five minutes to speak, in alphabetical order, before the voting commences. To be selected as the Republican candidate, a nominee must receive a majority of the votes cast. Votes will continue to be taken until a winner is determined, however, after the third ballot, the nominee with the lowest number of votes on the previous ballot will be removed from consideration on subsequent ballots.

The House District 5 Republican candidate is very likely to replace Soderberg in the General Assembly.

Republicans hold a solid lead with 9,015 active registered voters in House District 5. Independents (no party) have 6,697 active registered voters, while Democrats have 3,819 active registered voters in the district. In the 2014 General Election, Soderberg won re-election last November uncontested with 99.5 percent of the vote.

Soderberg, who had previously served as vice president of planning for the Northwest Iowa Power Cooperative when the legislature was out of session, was first elected to the Iowa House of Representatives in 2004. Prior to that, he was a Le Mars city councilor from 1998 until his election to the General Assembly. He has been challenged in a general election only once, in 2008, when he won by more than 50 points.