Another Lundberg on some Floyd County ballots in November

By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com

There will be two Lundbergs on the ballots in some parts of Floyd County in the November election, and neither got there the usual way.

As the Press previously reported, Dené Lundberg, of Floyd, will be the Democratic candidate for Iowa House District 58, representing most of Floyd, all of Chickasaw and part of Bremer counties. She is expected to be officially nominated at a Democratic nominating convention for that district to be held Saturday.

She will face Republican candidate Charles Thomson in the Nov. 8 general election.

Her husband, Jim Lundberg, a long-time ag instructor and FFA advisor at Charles City High School, will also be on the ballot for Floyd County voters living in the new Supervisor District 3, representing most of the north part of the county.

He will be running against Republican nominee Jeff Hawbaker, also of Floyd.

Jim Lundberg told the Press that earlier this year some people in the Democratic Party had approached him to see if he was interested in running for the District 3 county supervisor nomination in the June primary election.

“At the time I was not,” he said. “I’ve already put in my resignation for next year, from teaching. So I’ll be done teaching in June of 2023, and I said I didn’t even know how that would work,” potentially taking office in January but still teaching through the end of the school year.

No Democrats ran for either Iowa House District 58 or Floyd County Supervisor District 3 in the primary election that was held June 7.

When it became apparent that no Democrat had filed for the new supervisor district before the filing deadline, some people in the party approached Lundberg about the possibility of mounting a write-in campaign, he said.

“I talked to some other people and they said, ‘You’ve got some flexibility in your schedule, that not everything has to be done during the day’” if he would win the election, he said.

“People convinced me, so we sent out some postcards that said I’m going to try to make the ballot if you want to write me in,” he said.

In a primary election, Iowa Code requires that to win the nomination, any candidate must receive as many votes as 35% of the votes cast in the last primary election for that same office.

But County Auditor Gloria Carr, the county commissioner of elections, explained that since this is the first year the supervisor districts are in effect, there were no previous elections for that nomination.

In that case, she said, the law stipulates that a winning candidate must receive at least 35% of the votes cast in this primary election for that office.

In the June 7 primary election there were 86 write-in votes cast for the Democratic Supervisor District 3 nomination. Lundberg received 74 of them, or 86%.

Iowa House District 58 is also a new district because of redistricting after the 2020 census, so this year’s total votes for each party were used to determine if a candidate met the 35% threshold.

Dené Lundberg received 13 out of 31 write-in votes cast in Floyd County for Iowa House 58, or almost 42%, but did not receive enough write-in votes in the other two counties to meet the 35% requirement for the total votes cast. That’s why a nominating convention will be required to get her name on the ballot.

Jim Lundberg said Auditor Carr contacted him to let him know he had received enough votes to be nominated for the supervisor district, and if he wanted to accept the nomination he needed to sign an affidavit of candidacy within 7 days after the election was canvassed, which he did.

Lundberg said he had been a county soil commissioner for 10 years in the early 2000s in Floyd County, which is an elected position.

“That was working a lot with state and federal money. Soil conservation projects in the county, drainage ditches. I was on the end of closing the ag drainage wells in Floyd County, so I was pretty involved in that for awhile,” he said.

“I’m a teacher. I feel like I’m a public servant – have been for starting my 40th year now at Charles City schools. It’s kind of what I’ve done my whole life,” he said. “I’ve always been very aware of what’s going on at the state level, but also being a soil commissioner and a local taxpayer I’ve also been interested in what happens locally in the county.”

He said he attended a couple of meetings recently on whether emergency medical services (EMS) should be designated an essential service in the county, including a meeting in Charles City and another in Nora Springs.

“I got a totally different perspective on the western side of the county than what I got in Charles City,” he said. “Afterward I had a chance to talk to a few residents from over that side of the county and they gave me some of their opinions, which I was really happy to hear.”

He said he had mixed feelings about having supervisors elected by district, which county voters overwhelmingly approved at a special election last year.

“I like the idea that we’re getting some representation around the county. I think that’s always been important. However, if I am fortunate enough to be elected, I don’t want to feel like I’m only representing the people in the northern half of the county. I would like to think that I am also representing the people in the southern half of the county,” he said.

“Obviously the whole budget process is something that I’m interested in. I have a bachelor’s and master’s both from Iowa State University in agriculture, and I’ve taught a lot of farm management and economics classes in my life, so I have a background on budgeting,” he said. “I’m interested in looking at the budget and making Floyd County so we can get the things that we need, but maybe sources of revenue other than taxes sometimes that we can look at.”

He said his goal is making Floyd County thrive economically, “so people want to come here and start a business, expand their businesses into Floyd County, make us marketable that way.”

He said he would encourage anyone who sees him to ask him questions and tell him what their concerns are.

“I’d like to hear people’s opinions,” he said.