Congressman Earl Pomeroy and his 87-year-old mother, Myrtle Pomeroy, a resident of Valley City, registered their presidential preferences Tuesday at the Valley City State University polling station for District 24 Democrats. Valley City is the Congressman’s home town. (Nikki Laine Zinke/VCTR) 

By Steve Browne
Valley City Times-Record

    Barack Obama and Mitt Romney won the Presidential Preference Caucuses in District 24 Tuesday night.
    Obama won the Democratic Presidential Preference Caucus with 266 votes out of 500 cast, to beat Hillary Clinton, who polled 224.
    Mitt Romney won the Republican caucus with 44 votes out of 132 cast, followed by Ron Paul with 34.
    Obama and Clinton led the field among Democrats, far outpolling John Edwards’ nine votes and Dennis Kucinich’s one. Among the Republican candidates, the distribution of votes was more even, with 28 votes for Mike Huckabee and 26 for John McCain.  
    Expressed as percentage of votes cast, the difference between the two leading candidates in each party was similar. Obama won 53.2 percent of the Democratic votes compared to Clinton’s 44.8 percent. On the Republican side, Romney won 33.3 percent to Paul’s 25.75 percent, a difference of 8.4 percent for the two top Democratic candidates and 7.58 for the Republican.
    However, the two leading Democratic candidates between them won 98 percent of the votes cast.
    In contrast, the two top Republicans totalled only 59 percent. Mike Huckabee won 21.2 percent of the vote and last place John McCain 19.7.
    District 24 Democratic Party Chairperson Britt Jacobson said it was a good turnout, “A lot of college students voting for the first time showed up and it was fun to see that.”
    Asked why the Democratic turnout was so much higher than the Republican, District Republican caucus Chairperson Stan Hansen said, “Well, the Democratic caucus was open four times longer than we were. Turnout was up from last year but it’s only the second Presidential Preference Caucus in North Dakota. Other than that, I have no idea.”