The deadline for current Nebraska incumbents to file for any office in this year’s elections is one week from today and most of those in Dawes County have either done so or announced their intentions not to run again.
All 3 Chadron School Board members whose terms are ending have filed to keep their seats – Boone Huffman, Melissa Webster, and Maddie Nitsch – as have the 2 Crawford City Council incumbents up this year – Amanda Lager and Christopher Dean.
Declining to run again are District 3 Dawes County Commissioner Webb Johnson and Chadron City Councilman Joe Johndreau.
Fellow councilman Miles Bannan and Crawford School Board members Don Edelman, JoElla Norman, and Alicia Robertson have not yet declared their intentions.
The only 3 non-incumbents in Dawes County to have filed so far are all running for county commissioner. Dave Redden and Walt Juhlin both filed as Republicans and will meet in the primary. Tony Johnson advances to November as a Libertarian.
      43rd District State Senator Tom Brewer of Gordon is term-limited and 2 hopefuls have filed: Tony Tangwall of Whitney, who has not made a public announcement on filing, and former Cherry County Commissioner Tanya StorerÂ
Storer, a Republican, challenged Brewer 4 years ago and got 42% of the vote. She says she wasn’t planning to run this year after watching the extreme discord of last year’s legislative session, but changed her mind after concluding District 43 needs a principled, conservative voice in Lincoln.
The 43rd District is the largest in Nebraska with all or parts of 13 counties in the Panhandle and Sandhills, including Dawes and Sheridan. Storer says that’s another important reason she decided to run this year.
Storer launched her campaign with strong support from Nebraska’s conservative leaders including U-S Senators Deb Fischer and Pete Ricketts, Congressman Mike Flood, and State Senator Mike Jacobson.