He spent hours watching the Iowa Secretary of State’s election tracker website, anxiously waiting for the results of Tuesday’s primary election to start rolling in. By 9 p.m., just an hour after the polls closed, Hayek knew he had won his race on the ballot.

“I’ve never run for anything before,” he said. “I didn’t know what to expect.”

Hayek, who lives on a family farm near Duncombe, was one of three candidates running in the Republican primary for the Webster County Board of Supervisors District 1. The other candidates were Troy Anderson, of Fort Dodge, and Todd Bingham, also of Duncombe.

“I had two great candidates I was running against and so it’s just really emotional to see the support come out,” Hayek said.

-Messenger photo by Kelby Wingert
Poll worker Steve Rehmann, of Fort Dodge, delivers ballot boxes from his precinct to the Webster County Courthouse after the primary election on Tuesday evening.

In December, Hayek announced his candidacy for the supervisor seat being vacated at the end of this term by Republican Keith Dencklau.

“I put in a lot of work,” Hayek said. “I did a lot of door-knocking and talked to a lot of people.”

He said going door-knocking in his district gave him the opportunity to learn what is important to the constituents of District 1. He said many of the people he talked to wanted to have a farmer representative on the Board of Supervisors.

“I’ve talked to a lot of people that thought it is critical to keep somebody from our ag community on our county board,” he said.

Dencklau, who is also a farmer, has served as the District 1 supervisor for the last 16 years.

Hayek said another priority of the voters he talked to was government transparency.

“Whatever we can do to make information more easily and readily available for residents of Webster County,” he said. “Like where do our tax dollars go?”

Hayek will face Democrat Tommy Coleman in the general election in November.

“I’m really excited to get this opportunity to be in the November election and represent District 1,” Hayek said.

Hayek, with 308 votes, received 47.24% of the vote in the district.

Anderson received 233 votes, or 35.74%, and Bingham received 110 votes, or 16.87%.

District 1 includes much of northeast Webster County, including Badger, Newark Township, Colfax Township, Duncombe, Vincent, Washington Township, Cooper Township, and parts of Fort Dodge.

According to the Webster County Auditor’s Office, of the 20,138 registered voters in Webster County, 2,903 cast their ballots in the primary election. That’s a voter turnout rate of 14.42%.