In Regional News, the Independent ticket of current Lt. Gov. Arnold Palacios and David Apatang win the Gubernatorial Runoff election.
This makes it the first time in the Commonwealth’s history that an Independent has taken the both the seat of Governor and Lt. Governor.
The Independent tandem garnered 54.05% or 7,077 votes during Friday’s runoff election. Meanwhile, Republican incumbent Governor Ralph Torres and running mate Senator Vinnie Sablan had a total of 45.95% or 6,017 votes.
The runoff race follows the General Election that occurred 2 weeks prior, where the Torres-Sablan Tandem originally came out on top in the three-way race winning 38.83% of the island’s votes.
During the General election, the Independent ticket of Palacios-Apatang had a total of 33.15% of the island’s votes, meanwhile, the Democratic tandem of Sablan-Staffler had 28.01%.
As PNC previously reported, despite the incumbent Governor winning in the General, under CNMI law, because he did not win 50% of the island’s votes in the three-way race, then a runoff election was necessary.
