Palo mayor's narrow win will 'change the dynamic' on Linn board

A young Linn County resident casting his or her first vote Tuesday would have been born after Jim Houser became a county supervisor.

“It's been a good run, 19 years,” Houser said the day after his razor-thin loss to Palo Mayor John Harris, now set to become the county board's second Republican. “I have a lot of accomplishments I'm proud of, and I'll never look back and wish I'd done something different.”

Houser, a Democrat from Cedar Rapids, said he hasn't decide whether he'll seek a recount. Complete but unofficial results have Harris defeating Houser by 167 votes of 16,727 cast – 0.9 percent.

“I'm talking to my campaign people, and seeing what they recommend,” he said.

If Harris' margin holds, “it will change the dynamic quite a bit,” said District 4 Supervisor Brent Oleson, currently the only Republican on the five-member board. “I already have a great working relationship with Supervisor (Ben) Rogers, and John Harris is in the mold of Supervisor Rogers – always trying to look for positive solutions that everybody can support.”

Harris, whose in-person campaigning was virtually non-existent due to his treatments for cancer, hasn't responded to calls today seeking comment. Oleson said he visited Harris at his Palo home before returns started coming in Tuesday night and exchanged texts with him as his win became apparent.

“We were in awe,” Oleson said.

Republican Harris took only two of the district's Cedar Rapids districts: the city's 12th precinct (polling at Coolidge Elementary School) and the 47th, at Viola Gibson Elementary School attended by Palo students. But he swept the precincts outside the city, overcoming Houser's 377-vote edge with his own 544-vote margin in rural precincts.

“The rural precijncts voted Republican,” said Houser. “There was so much negative at the top of the ticket it had an effect all the way down.”

Oleson said he expects Harris' health won't prevent him from serving.

“He's going to fight it and win and be a great supervisor,” he said. “That's how he looks at it, and that's how I look at it, and that's how everybody should look at it.”

State law exempts candidates from the usual $100 bond posting when the margin is less than 1 percent, Linn County Auditor Joel Miller said.

Houser has until Nov. 12 to file a recount petition with the county board, which would then consider a vote ordering a recount, Miller said. (State law designates the petition deadline as 5 p.m. the third day after the official canvass, which is Tuesday).

Miller said he expects Tuesday's result to stand up through the canvass process with a swing of a handful of votes either way.