Incumbents ruled the 2022 election in Crookston and throughout the area while going 13 for 13 in City of Crookston races, Polk County Commissioners, and State Senate, State Representative, and United States Representative. The vote totals and comments from each winner is below.
CROOKSTON MAYOR AND CITY COUNCIL
MAYOR –
Incumbent Mayor Dale Stainbrook won reelection by 392 votes over current City Councilman Clayton Briggs. Stainbrook will get his second term as mayor and Briggs will stay on the council as the Ward 3 councilmember. 
Stainbrook was taken aback by the results but was thankful that the city believes he has done a well enough job in the two years after he was appointed as the mayor and looks forward to serving as the mayor once again. With the chance to serve another term for the city, Stainbrook looks forward to continuing more of the work he and the council have begun this year. “It’s a big thing with the housing, childcare, and Ag Innovation Campus. They’re going to be up and running soon, which will hopefully be a spinoff business,” Dale Stainbrook explained. “They’re also going to be looking for housing and the daycare, and hopefully, Epitome Energy comes on board, and we’ll see how that goes. I think if we can get some major players that bring employment into the city, I feel that it’ll be robust for our downtown, and maybe we’ll get some smaller spinoff businesses.”
WARD 4 –
Incumbent Don Cavalier beat Rob Silvers by 99 votes and will serve four more years on the council. 
With the new term as the representative for Ward 4, Cavalier looks to continue work in the committee he and his ward had formed to help build downtown Crookston and the ward. “We set up a committee recently before COVID, but we slowed that down because of the pandemic,” Councilmember Don Cavalier explained. “Now, the committee’s got about 15 members again, and we’re going to take the survey that we did a couple of years ago, and the committee is going to start meeting with the city directors to talk about what can be done for the woods addition in Ward 4 and also for downtown as we’ve got a lot of things going on at the corridor that we want to see happen.”
Another item Cavalier is interested in working with new Community Development Director Kari Kirschbaum on subjects like childcare and other actions within CHEDA to help increase the businesses in downtown Crookston.
WARD 6 –
Incumbent Dylane Klatt beat Morgan Hibma by 161 votes and will get another four years on the council. 
With four more years on the council, Klatt looks to accomplish some of the city’s most requested and vital necessities. “I think we’ve gotten some good momentum here over the last couple of years, and I think we’re finally getting the city back on track,” said Klatt. “We’re getting some infrastructure looked at and hopefully resolving some daycare and housing issues. We had a good meeting last Monday, and hopefully, we’re on the right track now that we’re doing some of that stuff as well.”
Klatt also thanked his opponent, Morgan Hibma, for her participation in the election and hopes that she and other candidates will look to run for the council in the future to help make it a better place for the residents.
At-Large –
A long-time Crookston resident, Tim Menard won the Crookston City 
Council At-Large race by an impressive 1,211 votes. Menard was thrilled with the overwhelming support. “Thank you to my family, friends, cheerleaders, and champions for the myriad ways you supported my campaign,” said Menard. “I am humbled that you have chosen me as your Crookston City Council Member At Large for the next four years. It will be my great privilege to serve my beloved community.”
IF YOU ARE ON YOUR PHONE – FLIP IT HORIZONTALLY TO VIEW THE TABLES
| MAYOR |
Votes | WARD 2 | Votes | |
| Dale Stainbrook (I) | 1,191 | Nobody filed | ||
| Clayton Briggs | 799 | Write-Ins | ||
| WARD 4 | Votes | WARD 6 | Votes | |
| Don Cavalier (I) | 196 | Dylane Klatt (I) | 231 | |
| Rob Silvers | 97 | Morgan Hibma | 70 | |
| AT-LARGE | Votes | |||
| Tim Menard | 1,576 | |||
| Lane DeVoge | 365 |
CROOKSTON SCHOOL BOARD
The Crookston School Board has three spots up for election and the two incumbents, Tim Dufault and Patty Dillabough won reelection garnering the most votes. Marcia Meine will be the third person elected to the school board after receiving 1,182 votes.
With another four years on the School Board, Dufault looks to continue working on two major projects that the school board is 
focusing on this year. “The initial goal is to pass the referendum for the athletic complex. It’s something that the city and school district desperately need and would be awesome to have a field right outside the backdoor of our middle school and high school so kids can have physical education classes out there and all kinds of sports,” Dufault explained. “Then, if having it as turf, there will be open winters where we can use it longer in the fall and use it earlier in the spring, and we can have home track meets again, which we haven’t had in four years. The other thing I wanted to get reelected for was that we’ve got an intern superintendent, so it is our duty now to look for the next superintendent. That is a big hire, and we want to do it right, so I’d like to be there to do that.”
Patty Dillabough is looking forward to completing the referendum for the athletic complex while also looking to expand some courses 
taught at the school district. “We want to get our big sports referendum made because it’s a “have to” thing now for track and field, football, and other sports, so that’s our number one goal,” Patty Dillabough explained. “The second thing I’d really like to see is to bring in a couple more classes for the kids, like home economics, nursing, or health classes that they’ll use in real life once they graduate. Not everyone goes to four years of college, and nursing is one of the things we need so much in this community. I really think it would help, and that’s where I’m going to lean on this year.”
Marcia Meine, who had run for an open position on the school board twice before, was finally elected after her third candidacy. Meine looks forward to working with the school board to learn more about the ins and outs of its operations and work with the parents and teachers about any changes they would want for the school district. “I was at a lot of the School Board meetings during the COVID time and everything, and I’d like to talk to the parents and the teachers to see what changes they would like to see. I’ve talked to many kids, and they’ve given me some insight on what they would like to see come to the school,” said Meine. “I’m very excited just to get in there and learn the basics and work with Superintendent Kuehn and sit down with a lot of the teachers and parents for their needs.”
| SCHOOL BOARD | Votes |
| Tim Dufault (I) | 1,902 |
| Patty Dillabough (I) | 1,521 |
| Marcia Meine | 1,182 |
| Marianne Isaacs | 1,020 |
| Mary Gosse | 1,016 |
MN DISTRICT 1B, MN SENATOR DISTRICT 1, U.S. REPRESENTATIVE DISTRICT 7
MINNESOTA REPRESENTATIVE DISTRICT 1B –
Debra Kiel (Republican incumbent of Crookston) beat DFL challenger Cindy Ansbacher for the second straight election. 
Kiel is hoping for a Republican majority allowing her the opportunity to be a chair of one of the committees in the health sector. With another term to serve, Kiel is determined to accomplish many things she could not last year. “Making sure that with the amount of money that we have in our reserves, we need to stop taxing social security, and I think we need to have some conversation about some funding that we need to look into as far as people that need basic things like rides to medical care that we tried to work on last year along with our ambulance services, which are really stretched in rural Minnesota,” Representative Deb Kiel explained. “There are a lot of volunteers, and for those that are working, we need more people helping nursing homes to see if we can get them more balance because there are more challenges there.” Other subjects included ensuring the needs of students were met in education and other basic needs that needed to happen within school districts. Kiel was very thankful for all of the support she received from the District, which has given her confidence to return to St. Paul to represent District 1B.
MINNESOTA SENATE DISTRICT 1-
District 1 State Senator Mark Johnson ran unopposed and won easily and with another term now in his hands, Senator Johnson looked forward to another six 
years in office. “It’s absolutely an honor to be back in the Minnesota State Senate, that’s something I really enjoyed, and I think we’re doing a lot of good work for Northwest Minnesota and the state as well. We’ve got several things that we’re going to be looking at in the next session coming up, and tonight really determines what that is and will shape what the agenda is going forward,” said Senator Johnson. “Some of the things I really would like to work on include our tax policy in Minnesota, which is driving a lot of people and businesses away from this great state, so how do we fix that to bring those people back and keep the people we have here? We can make a lot of different adjustments there. Agencies are another, one of the biggest problems we have is agency overreach, whether its DNR, MBCA, and others, that are really doing more than they should be in areas, more than keeping people safe, and allowing things to run as they should, but really putting binders on people and driving businesses and individuals outside of the state. So how do we get these people back into control. There are a number of those types of issues and there are a number of local issues too. There’re a few bonding projects for water and bridges, like the Nielsville Bridge and different things like that that are more local that I’ll be working with Representative Kiel and Burkel on going forward too. There’s a lot to do, but I’m really excited to get down there and start my work again.”
| MN REP 1B |
Votes | MN SENATE 1 | Votes |
| Deb Kiel (I) | 10,880 | Mark Johnson (I) | 27,324 |
| Cindy Ansbacher | 4,401 | Write-Ins | 754 |
| U.S. REP DIST. 7 | Votes | ||
| Michelle Fischbach (I) | 204,770 | ||
| Jill Abahsain | 84,454 | ||
| Travis Johnson | 16,421 |
POLK COUNTY COMMISSIONER RACES
The incumbents faired well in the Polk County Commissioner races. In District 2, incumbent Warren Strandell edged challenger Curtis Knutson by 89 votes to get another four-year term.
In District 4, incumbent Joan Lee beat Dennis Boucher by 492 votes to get another four years as a county commissioner.
In District 5, incumbent Mark Holy was unopposed and will get another four years on the board.
| DISTRICT 2 | Votes | DISTRICT 4 | Votes |
| Warren Strandell (I) | 1,127 | Joan Lee (I) | 1,368 |
| Curtis Knutson | 1,038 | Dennis Boucher | 876 |
| DISTRICT 5 | Votes | ||
| Mark Holy (I) | 1,594 | ||
| Write-In | 18 |
UNOPPOSED POLK COUNTY RACES
The Polk County Sheriff Jim Tadman and Polk County Attorney Greg Widseth ran unopposed and will resume their respective jobs for another four years.
| SHERIFF | Votes | ATTORNEY | Votes |
| Jim Tadman (I) | 9384 | Greg Widseth (I) | 8,732 |
| Write-In | 92 | Write-In | 151 |
STATE RESULTS – GOVERNOR, ATTORNEY GENERAL, AUDITOR, SECRETARY OF STATE
| GOVERNOR | Votes | ATTORNEY GENERAL | Votes | |
| Tim Walz (I) | 1,311,639 | Keith Ellison (I) | 1,253,730 | |
| Scott Jensen | 1,119,240 | Jim Schultz | 1,232,861 | |
| AUDITOR | Votes | SECRETARY OF STATE | Votes | |
| Julie Blaha (I) | 1,167,589 | Steve Simon (I) | 1,344,976 | |
| Ryan Wilson | 1,159,106 | Kim Crockett | 1,119,236 |
