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As of Tuesday night, 5th Ward Albert Lea City Councilor Robert Rasmussen led challenger John Severtson by 56 votes.

Rasmussen had 483 votes or 52.61% of the votes compared to Severtson’s 427 votes or 46.51%. 

About 10,000 absentee ballots and mail-in ballots had reportedly been counted thus far as of Tuesday, with the rest to be counted Wednesday. 

Rasmussen was not able to be reached as of press time.

“If Robert wins, that’s great,” Severtson said Tuesday night. “What I wanted to do was to show there’s other people out there with other ideas, that disagree with what’s being done.”

Severtson said he wished more people had run for the other council seats up for reelection.

Incumbent councilors Rich Murray, 1st Ward, and Jason Howland, 3rd Ward, were unopposed in their respective races.