Democratic candidates won across all contested county races in Tuesday's election, replacing retiring officials and the incumbent Republican treasurer. Jenna Redel won the County Treasurer race, and Kyle Rieman will replace the retiring auditor while Bob Nolte will replace the retiring Recorder of Deeds.
Each winner separated from their opponents by a few thousand votes.
There were also four uncontested county races on the ballot, including Brianna Lennon for County Clerk, a position she has held since 2018. Christy Blakemore ran uncontested for Circuit Court Clerk; Brian McCollum for Collector of Revenue and newcomer Roger Johnson for Prosecuting Attorney were also unopposed.
County Treasurer
The race for County Treasurer pitted Dustin Stanton, an appointed incumbent, against Redel, a challenger from within the Boone County government.
Stanton, the Republican candidate, was appointed to the office in April and was technically the seventh person in 11 years to hold the seat. Redel, a Democrat and the county’s director of Human Resources and Risk Management, hoped to flip the seat another time. Both campaigned on stabilizing an office that manages a $100 million investment portfolio meant to ensure the county’s cashflow needs are met.
Redel said in a previous interview on the campaign trail that her nine years within the county government gave her an advantage. She also said she spent several years developing the county's new enterprise resource planning (ERP) system for accounting.
The new ERP system will not create new accounting checks and balances but instead incorporate the county's existing ones, Stanton said in an interview last month. At the time, Redel responded that implementation is a complicated task and that she disagreed that the existing checks and balances were enough.
County Auditor
Rieman was elected the county's first new auditor since longtime auditor June Pitchford won the seat in 1990.
Rieman, who garnered 31,628 votes Tuesday evening, beat out his Republican opponent Jason Gibson, who received 29,302 votes.
Both candidates are from Columbia.
The two expressed similar goals for the position, including a strong desire to serve the community and finish implementing the county's new ERP system.
Rieman said at the Democratic watch party that if Gibson is a candidate who cares about the community, he will want to collaborate with him in the future.
"I'm sure we'll find a way to work together," Rieman said.
Gibson has spent 11 years working in the County Auditor office under Pitchford and said in an October interview his election would retain the institutional knowledge from Pitchford within the office.
Also in October, Rieman said his previous jobs doing budget analysis for the state and budget officer for the City of Columbia gave him necessary experience and team management skills for county auditor.
Recorder of Deeds
Democrat Bob Nolte will replace the retiring Recorder of Deeds, Democrat Nora Dietzel, who served in the position since 2015. Neither Nolte nor his opponent, Shamron Jones, have prior political experience. Nolte won against two opponents in the Democratic primary for the nomination, while Jones was unopposed in the Republican primary.
Jones, a marketing specialist at FedEx, campaigned on her desire to use the office to help people explore their family histories, a result of her own interest in genealogical research. Nolte, who worked in MU’s athletics compliance department for nearly a decade, campaigned on his administrative experience.
