November 6, 2008-Fargo Forum
Hamm keeps insurance post
Janell Cole
The Forum - 11/06/2008
State Capitol Bureau
BISMARCK – Adam Hamm, assured a four-year term as North Dakota’s insurance commissioner, said he’s relieved he can settle down and get on with the job.
“I’m at work, ready to get started. We’ve got a lot of work to get done in four years,” he said Wednesday after capturing the election by an unofficial 1,781 votes following a bruising campaign against challenger Jasper Schneider and an all-night wait for results from the final precincts.
Though the margin is small enough that Schneider could demand a recount, Schneider said he won’t seek one.
A state House member from Fargo, Schneider said he is concentrating on spending time with his wife and young son, “which is long overdue,” and getting back to his law practice and preparations for the 2009 Legislature.
The final count wasn’t known until after 9 a.m. Wednesday, when a holdup in the Mercer County results finally cleared.
Hamm was ahead by a little more than 1,000 votes when most election watchers at the Republicans’ gathering at a Bismarck hotel packed up some time shortly after midnight. Hamm, his family and a few others, including two TV news crews, hung around the hotel for several more hours, with his supporters calling Mercer County every half hour.
Hamm and others with computers and Blackberries kept checking in with the Secretary of State’s office official results Web page.
At 4:30, he and his family headed home to wait it out there.
“I slept about a half an hour at a time,” he said.
Finally at about 9:15, the Secretary of State’s site showed all 528 precincts had reported.
“It went from 514 to 528,” Hamm said. He turned to his wife, Michelle, and said, “We won.”
“She couldn’t believe it and started crying,” he said.
Schneider called Hamm a couple of hours later to congratulate him.
“Like everyone else, we were waiting until every precinct was in,” Schneider said.
Hamm said it’s now hit him that he’s been granted the confidence of the state’s voters for four years and said he’ll plan to keep working on consumer protection, better choices in health care insurance, aid to seniors for their insurance questions and other issues.
“I’m just excited to get to do this. This is what I wanted to do,” he said. “I just have to make sure I do it right for the voters.”