Rebecca Noecker wins contested St. Paul City Council seat

Rebecca Noecker has apparently won the Ward 2 seat on the St. Paul City Council.

A final vote tally using the ranked-choice voting system, completed Monday, gave Noecker 2,782 votes to Darren Tobolt's 2,444.

Noecker, a resident of St. Paul's west side and a member of the city's planning commission, said she's eager to begin.

"I'm thrilled, I'm so excited. We felt really good coming out of last Tuesday by the turnout, by the numbers, by the new voters that we'd engaged in particular," she said.

"But everything was up in the air until today. It's wonderful to feel like all the hard work has paid off and to see all the support we were able to generate."

Noecker and Tobolt were the top two vote-getters in last Tuesday's election, but Noecker had more first-choice ballots going into Monday's hand count.

Ramsey County Elections Manager Joe Mansky said the hand count took about an hour because Noecker and Tobolt were the only two candidates left.

"It just took just one round of reallocation, because the other five candidates did not have enough votes collectively to defeat either of the two candidates," Manksy said.

The St. Paul City Council will certify the winners on Thursday.

Noecker said her work will start immediately.

"I'm hoping not to wait until January to at least get started," she said. "I know the learning curve is pretty significant. I'm hoping to right away start reaching out to my fellow council members trying to learn from them and get their perspective on what I should be preparing for and start putting together a team and just get ready. Because I want to hit the ground running and there's so much to do. I'm really eager to get started."

Noecker had the backing of the St. Paul Police Federation and the St. Paul Chamber of Commerce.