Incumbent Superintendent Almost Upset By Anti-Common Core Teacher

Superintendent Kirsten Baesler – who has had a rocky first term in office between an ugly battle over the controversial Common Core standards and personal issues which spilled into the headlines – won a squeaker over Fort Totten teacher Joe Chiang today.

The official announcement was that there were 1,640 seated delegates, but only 1,359 delegates cast votes.

Joe Chiang got 631 votes.

Kirsten Baesler got 728 votes.

That’s pretty remarkable given Chiang’s amateurish campaign. The banner at his convention booth was a running joke among convention attendees all day:

I was wondering if maybe Baesler was a French name, and Chiang was a Francophobe.

Anyway, that’s a decent showing by Chiang, and I suspect anger over Baesler’s support for Common Core drove a lot of it.

The Superintendent race isn’t tehnically partisan, but the parties very often vote to endorse candidates anyway.

At the end of his speech conceding the convention vote to Baesler, Chiang said something about “this doesn’t stop here.” Which strongly implies that he may be running to the June primary.