Terry Marquardt plans to stay in the race to replace Steve Pearce in Congress despite getting the votes of only two delegates at Saturday’s Republican preprimary nominating convention.
“The campaign moves forward,” he said in an e-mail. “At this point, we have much work ahead of us.”
Marquardt said he needs to submit 817 signatures by March 25 to stay in the race. My calculations are that he needs 804 signatures, based on information I was provided by the Secretary of State’s Office. Either way, Marquardt says he has already gathered more than enough signatures to stay on the ballot.
Aubrey Dunn Jr. won Saturday’s Republican Second Congressional District preprimary nominating contest with 30 percent of the vote. C. Earl Greer and Ed Tinsley each had 24 percent.
Of the candidates who didn’t reach the 20-percent threshold needed to qualify for the ballot, Monty Newman had just under 19 percent of the vote, and Greg Sowards tied Marquardt. Each had two votes, or about 1 percent.
A prior version of this posting incorrectly stated that Dunn won 40 percent of the vote at the preprimary convention. He won 40 votes, which was 30 percent.