By BRIAN PORTER | Rocky Mountain Voice
The final days and even hours of a campaign can sometimes mean the difference between winning and losing, but for one 4th District candidate for Congress the past days have brought more important battles.
Instead of knocking doors, meeting with supporters or other activities that would have helped his campaign, Richard Holtorf spent Sunday coming to the rescue on Buffalo Springs Ranch, where he operates a cattle feeder operation.
The water table dropped and the pasture wells were not pumping water, Holtorf’s campaign manager Rhonda Brandt explained to The Independent. It is the type of emergency that farmers and ranchers through the rural portion of the district face.
Then the problem became worse on Monday.
“Richard was working to restore water to stock tanks and ponds when a wild prairie fire broke out just south of Buffalo Springs Ranch in northern Washington County,” Brandt wrote in a press statement. “The wind was blowing out of the northeast, so Richard’s place was safe, but his neighbors were not so lucky.”
Neighboring farmers and ranchers responded with tractors and tillage equipment, water hauling trucks, and shovels, Brandt said.
The water issue on his ranch and fire on a neighboring ranch meant Holtorf needed to suspend campaign activity on the eve of the election. He made a plea to voters in Brandt’s press statement: “Please vote. I already voted and we need you to vote too,” Holtorf said.