A candidate endorsed by the Prohibition Party for a nonpartisan soil and water supervisor position in Minnesota narrowly lost his race earlier this week, but gave the party what it considers its strongest electoral showing in over three decades.
In a statement received Wednesday, November 4, the party told Independent Political Report that Bruce Johnson, its preferred candidate in the race for Dakota County Soil and Water Supervisor District 4, fell short in his reelection bid, but that he still set recent records for the organization. According to unofficial results from the Minnesota Secretary of State, Johnson earned 13,610 votes for about 47 percent of the total, but was defeated by Shannon Wohlman with 15,172 votes.
“This is the closest a candidate endorsed by the party has come to winning a local election in over 20 years, since Jim Hedges was reelected Thompson Township Assessor in 2005,” the party said. “This is also the first time a candidate endorsed by the party has gotten over 10,000 votes for an elected office since 1990.”
State archives show that Johnson was first elected to the position in 2016 before being reelected in 2018 and 2022. It’s not clear why his first term was for only half the usual length. As a supervisor, his responsibilities included overseeing local conservation priorities and needs and working with other government agencies to protect soil and water resources.
While IPR is unaware of how involved the national Prohibition Party was with Johnson’s race, or if he publicized its endorsement on the campaign trail, the party had openly supported him since the spring. Johnson’s bid also picked up the support of the Green Party of Minnesota, which considered him one of its seven official candidates of the cycle.
The Prohibition Party also gave a brief update on its effort in New York, where it ran Jonathan Makeley for governor. Makeley had mounted a write-in campaign due to the state’s strict ballot access requirements.
The party said he was its first gubernatorial candidate in the state in nearly a century and that his ground game consisted of directly engaging voters to spread awareness of the organization. It said it would approach state officials in the coming weeks once official canvasses were certified for a specific write-in total.
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