Republicans buoyed by Dupont election win

By JIM MANN/The Daily Inter Lake

After being deflated by presidential election returns Tuesday night, a mostly Republican gathering for Flathead County Commissioner candidate Jim Dupont burst into cheers on finally getting news that their candidate was the decisive winner.

By the end of the night, Dupont had a commanding 66 percent to 29 percent lead over Democratic candidate Steve Qunell.

"I'm just happy. We had to have some good news," said Jeff Larsen, who worked on Dupont's campaign.

"The local races, that's what I'm most interested in, especially Jim's race, because I worked so hard on his campaign."

The party at Scotty's bar on the south of Kalispell started with a packed room and a strong presence of local law enforcement support for Dupont, who served as Flathead County's sheriff for 16 years.

By 9:15 p.m., there were no local election results, but the Fox News channel announced that Republican presidential candidate John McCain had called Democrat Barack Obama to congratulate him on being elected president.

The room became noticeably quieter, and soon after about half the crowd had left, still not knowing any local election results.

An obviously disappointed Katie Schuldheiss, who had been sitting directly under a television set watching national returns, did stick around long enough to see that Dupont had won.

"It's upsetting," she said of the presidential results. "But I am very pleased that [Dupont] won. He will be a very good commissioner."

Dupont also was pleased with the results.

"I had confidence, but I also had a lot of respect for Steve," he said. "For a newcomer, he did a great job. He worked hard."

Dupont said he and his opponent had sharply differing views and campaigns, and he noted that Qunell "was fighting a different battle," partly because Dupont had a strong advantage with name recognition in the county.

Dupont said his supporters were "on edge" as a result of the presidential election and the long-awaited results on the commissioners race. "To me, that reflects a respect for Steve," he said.

Dupont defeated incumbent Commissioner Gary Hall in the primary election.

Reporter Jim Mann may be reached at 758-4407 or by e-mail at jmann@dailyinterlake.com