Blue Earth resident and congressional candidate Jennifer Carnahan is shown above voting in Blue Earth.

Former state Representative Brad Finstad won the Republican side of the First Congressional District Special Primary Election ballot, while former Hormel CEO Jeff Ettinger won the Democrat side of the ballot.

Both will now be on the Special Election ballot on Aug. 9, to determine who will fill the seat of former Congressman Jim Hagedorn, who passed away in February. That position will be until the end of the year.

Finstad was in a close race with state Representative Jeremy Munson, although there were 10 GOP candidates on the ballot.

Finstad received 13,835 votes, or 37.98 percent, compared to Munson’s 13,447 votes, or 36.92 percent.

In a distant third place finish was Blue Earth resident Jennifer Carnahan, who is Jim Hagedorn’s widow. Carnahan had 2,918 votes, or 8.01 percent. Matt Benda ended up in fourth place with 2,647 votes, or 7.27 percent of the total.

In Faribault County, it was Munson who took the top number of votes. The state Representative from Lake Crystal had 502 votes in the county, or 44.58 percent of the total. Finstad had 333 votes in Faribault County, or 29.57 votes.

Carnahan came in third in the county voting with 187 votes, or 16.61 percent. Benda had 61 votes, 5.42 percent.

Ettinger was by far and away the DFL winner both First District wide and in Faribault County.

He won with 64.25 percent of the vote in the whole First District, with 12,261 votes. Coming in second out of the eight Democrat contenders was Sarah Brakebill-Hacke with 2,524 votes or 13.23 percent.

In Faribault County, Ettinger had 172 votes, or 54.95 percent of the votes cast, to take first place.

However, it was a different case in the county when it came to second place. That went to Richard W. Painter who had 46 votes or 14.70 percent. Brakebill-Hacke was third in the county with 39 votes.

Although the GOP contest between Finstad and Munson was very close, Finstad declared victory early Wednesday morning and Munson also sent out a press release congratulating Finstad on the win.

While the Aug. 9 Special Election will decide who will be the First District Congressman for the remainder of 2022, there will also be another Primary Election ballot on Aug. 9, if necessary, to decide who will be on the Nov. 8 General Election ballot and become the First District Congressman for 2023-24.