Fargo, North Dakota - Law and Government

Law and Government

Fargo uses the city commission style of local government. Four commissioners and a mayor are elected at large for four-year terms. The current mayor of Fargo is Dennis Walaker, who was elected in 2006 over five challengers with 34% of the votes cast. Walaker, the city's longtime Public Works Director, presided over the city's successful 2009 and 2010 Red River flooding battles, which contributed to his re-election in June 2010 with 92% of the popular vote against three other candidates. One of the commissioners, currently Dr. Tim Mahoney, is selected by the commission members to serve as deputy mayor. The Fargo City Commission meets every two weeks in its chambers above the Fargo Civic Center. The meetings are broadcast on a Government-access television (GATV) cable channel.

Although politically diverse, Fargo has a history as a Republican-leaning area. Democrats tend to do well in state elections in the older and established areas of Fargo (Districts 11 and 21), but Republicans dominate throughout much of the newer areas of the city. George W. Bush carried Fargo as well as the rest of Cass County in the 2004 presidential election, with nearly 60 percent of the vote in both areas. In 2008, Democratic candidate Barack Obama won the majority of votes in Cass County, with a voting percentage very close to the percentage Obama received in the entire nation, while John McCain won the majority of votes in the entire state of North Dakota.

Although less Democratic-leaning than Grand Forks, Fargo is considerably more moderate/liberal than Bismarck, where Democrats hold only a single seat in the state senate. In the 2006 elections, several Fargo-area Republican incumbents to the state legislature were defeated.