John Burkel and Steve Gander win seats for Minnesota House of Representatives District 1A and 1B

Nov. 6—EAST GRAND FORKS, Minn. — East Grand Forks Mayor Steve Gander has won the seat for Minnesota House of Representatives District 1B and incumbent John Burkel has retained his seat in 1A, keeping District 1 a Republican-represented district.

Gander and Burkel both said they're interested to see what the majority will be for the House. Votes were still being tabulated Wednesday morning.

"It's going to be really, really close on the balance of power," Gander said. "I'm just happy to be part of this."

Burkel added, "it's been 70 to 64 for my entire four years in the House."

Burkel and Gander join Sen. Mark Johnson, from East Grand Forks, as the district's all-Republican representation.

Burkel, an agriculture producer from Badger, has served two terms in the House, representing the northern portion of District 1, which encompasses Kittson, Roseau, Pennington and Marshall counties. He won against DFL-er and optician James Sceville of Thief River Falls. Burkel won with 76% of the votes.

Gander, an optometrist, won against Mike Christopherson of Crookston, a DFL-er, Tier 1 teacher in Fisher and previous editor of the Crookston Times. Gander won with 67% of the votes. District 1B covers the southern portion of the district, including Red Lake, Polk and Norman counties.

Gander has a desire for bipartisanship, he said, and hopes to work together with other members of the House through whatever issues are at hand. As someone new to the House, he said he'll be taking time to listen and learn before he throws in his own ideas. Getting oriented with the House is his first objective.

"I can come in with ideas that are completely irrelevant and show that clearly I'm not ready for prime time, or I can get up that learning curve as fast as I can," he said.

Gander will be replaced as East Grand Forks mayor by Mark Olstad, who ran unopposed in Tuesday's election.

Burkel, who will be entering his third session, said budgets and school funding are on his mind, along with infrastructure projects, property tax relief, nonprofit funding reviews and other topics. There are some huge budget decisions to make, he said, with K-12 being the largest portion.

"I'm watching referendums around the district as we speak," Burkel said. "Everybody's got their levy on the ballot and there's just a lot of things to iron out with school funding. I really think we have to have a solid conversation. ... We have some really huge decisions to make."

Gander thanked Rep. Deb Kiel, R-Crookston, whose seat he will be taking, along with her husband, Lonn, for their help in getting prepared. Kiel opted to not run again this year.

To his opponent, Christopherson, he gave his thanks for running a good campaign.

"I have only great gratitude for Mike and his campaign, for the way that they conducted themselves," he said. "They ran a solid, hard, well-fought campaign in a district that, right now, favors the Republican side of it."