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N.D. Senate ag leader loses to challenger (Monday, Nov. 11, 2002 -- CropChoice news) --
Mikkel Pates, Agweek:
FARGO, N.D. — State Sen. Terry M. Wanzek, R- Jamestown, and
former chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, lost his
re-election bid to three- term state Rep. April Fairfield, D-Eldridge.
“I’m going to pour myself into my farm and my family,” Wanzek
says of his plans. “I’m going to manage my farm even better than
what we have.”
Wanzek lost by 131 votes out of 5,779 cast, not close enough for
a recount. He lost his home area of Stutsman County, N.D., by 89
votes. Wanzek had served in the Senate since 1995 the House in
1993.
Campaigning
In the last few days of the election, Fairfield, a North Dakota
Farmers Union staffer, used ads that quoted an Environmental
Working Group report that showed Wanzek had received $1.1
million in farm program payments. Wanzek says figures were
misleading because they were compiled payments over five years.
The payments supported four families when you count his own,
his father, a brother and two hired men, he says.
“We are aggressive farmers,” Wanzek acknowledges, saying
there was no time to effectively rebut the figures. He says Fairfield
also made political hay out of the fact that he received a
write-down from lenders on some land he bought 20 years ago.
Fairfield also says Wanzek had locked up his land against North
Dakota hunters, a claim he denies.
“That’s what cost me the election,” Wanzek reckons of the attacks
on his personal business.
Wanzek and Fairfield had appeared in three public forums. In the
forums Fairfield accused Wanzek of advocating positions held by
Monsanto, the company that markets Roundup Ready technology,
the most common of genetically modified crop technologies in
Upper Great Plains agriculture.
Wanzek says he shared concerns over marketing GM crops, but
though a moratorium on GM wheat commercialization would be a
“negative backward step” for the state. He says Monsanto and
other companies already have slowed their schedules for
releasing the technology.
Rep. Gene Nicholas, R-Cando, who has served in the House since
1975, won his race by 1,000 votes. Nicholas says Wanzek lost
because of a “last-minute smear campaign,” using money from
outside the local area.
He says Wanzek will be missed but that the Republican “activist
agenda” toward agricultural and rural development will go
forward — including ethanol incentives.
Wanzek says he was shocked at the results because Republican
party polls had shown him running 7 to 9 percentage points
ahead of Fairfield until a week before the election, with
three-quarters of undecided voters heading his direction.
Wanzek says he thinks it will be a mistake to consider the District
29 race as a referendum on the issue of genetically modified
wheat, even though he played a key role in blocking a moratorium
on the commercialization of GM wheat in the last legislative
session.
Wanzek says his campaign spent up to $12,000 on the election.
He believes Fairfield spent more, but isn’t certain. Wanzek, 45,
says it will take “some time to heal,” but does not rule out the
possibility of future political races.
Fairfield did not respond to numerous phone messages left by
Agweek. | |
