The party room was filled nearly to capacity at the Garden Cafe in Rockbrook on Monday, as around 150 people packed together to hear from gubernatorial candidate Charles W. Herbster over chicken cordon bleu and mashed potatoes. Herbster recently got the endorsement of former Attorney General and State Treasurer Don Stenberg and his wife Sue, adding to endorsements from others such as Gov. Kristi Noem and President Donald Trump (endorsements featured frequently in Herbster’s campaign materials).
Among the crowd were several other Republicans (most running for office), each of whom had 45 seconds to tell the audience about themselves and the issues they were running on:
- Walt Pfeffer, Douglas County Assessor and Register of Deeds
- Glen Weaver, U.S. Congress (District 1)
- Marni Hodgen, State Board of Education (District 8)
- Rick Holdcroft, State Legislature (District 36)
- Robert Borer, Secretary of State
- Marilyn Asher, running against Megan Hunt
- Julie Fredrickson, District 20
- Jon Tucker, Candidate for Metro Community College (At Large)
- Kathy Holkeboer, Voter Information Project
- Todd Pfitzer, City Engineer
- Mark Bonkiewicz, EPIC tax
- John Sieler, State Board of Education (District 8)
Herbster recently made an appearance at CPAC and talked about the “fake news” media reporting no one knelt down to pray for Ukraine when he asked the audience to do so after they left. His stump speech touched on various hot-button issues such as critical race theory and border security. His talk ran for nearly an hour and included some Q&A with the audience at the end.
