McHenry County Sheriff Keith Nygren

The sheriff with $123,000 in the bank as of New Year’s Day and 13-years of name identification as an elected official on top of service as Crystal Lake’s chief of police delivered a body blow to challenger Zane Seipler in Tuesday’s election.

There is no need to wait for the early and absentee ballots to be included in the totals to see that Keith Nygren won a convincing victory.

Nygren won over twice as many votes as Seipler.

The vote count at this time is 16,942 to 7,924.

Sheriff Nygren is again King of the Hill.

It’s not that Nygren isn’t vulnerable to criticism.

Zane Seipler on election day.

Seipler took my precinct 41-32, not counting the electronic, early and absentee ballots.

It is conceivable a similar message could have worked countywide had the challenger had sufficient money and manpower to deliver it.

What it means to me is that the veteran sheriff is not on as solid ground as he and his supporters probably think they are.

Nygren has Democrat Mike Mahon and Green Party candidate Gus Philpott as opponents in the fall election.  The two opponents will split the anti-Nygren vote, giving him a better chance to win than a one on one battle would.

Even so, my guess is that fall contest will not be as one-sided as this one seemed to Nygren.