The 2026 elections: a president unseated in May, a ballot restored by a judge in September

PRIMARY MAY 5, 2026 · GENERAL NOVEMBER 3, 2026 · FIGURES FROM THE CLERK'S OFFICIAL PRECINCT SUMMARY

Walkerton's town elections ran on the even-year cycle in 2026, and the cycle rewrote the council. Four Republicans filed for the town's seats by February 6, 2026: Gene Reese, Robert Payne, Timothy Lindewald, and Rick Coffman. On February 25 the county Election Board removed Lindewald from the primary ballot on a challenge by the Republican county chair, Jackie Horvath, under the rule tying a party primary candidate to that party's primary-vote history. In the May 5 primary, on the Clerk's official precinct summary, Ward 1's Robert Gregory Payne was unopposed (66 votes in Lincoln Township Precinct 2, 115 in Precinct 3). Ward 2 made the news the profile writers had framed all spring — whether the town would send Reese back for a thirty-seventh year. It would not: Rick Coffman took the Republican nomination from the sitting president in both town precincts, 56 votes to Reese's 51 in Precinct 2 and 101 to 83 in Precinct 3. Reese's council service, continuous since January 1990, therefore ends on December 31, 2026, and he presides over the council that replaces him until that date. The general election's Ward 2 race then produced the cycle's second fight, over the ballot itself. Christy Donlon was the Democratic nominee by vacancy-fill; the Election Board upheld a challenge to her candidacy on August 21, 2026, over a 72-hour defect in her declaration of candidacy; Democratic chair Don Westerhausen refiled the certificates on August 28; Clerk Amy Rolfes and the board nonetheless left her off; and on September 17, 2026, Superior Court Judge Jenny Pitts Manier ordered her name onto the ballot, where it stood on November 3 against Coffman. Ward 1 required no November contest: Payne, unopposed in the primary and unopposed again in the fall, holds the seat into the term beginning January 1, 2027. The Ward 2 result itself — Donlon or Coffman — appears in no published return reached as of November 11, 2026: the county's November results were still unofficial in the press of November 9, and the certified precinct summary that settles the May figures had no November counterpart in the record reached. It is carried as GAP-WKGOV-1, and its settler is named there: the Clerk's certified precinct summary for the November 3, 2026 general election.

Sources:

1. St. Joseph County Clerk, Precinct Summary Report, May 5, 2026 Primary Election, Official Results (May 15, 2026), precincts Lincoln Twp 2 (070002) and Lincoln Twp 3 (070003): Ward 1, Robert Gregory Payne 66 and 115, unopposed; Ward 2, Rick Coffman 56 and 101, Gene Reese 51 and 83.
2. South Bend Tribune (February 11, 2026): the primary filings. (February 25, 2026): the Election Board's removal of Lindewald. (October 30, 2026): the November ballot — Ward 1, Payne uncontested; Ward 2, Donlon (D) and Coffman (R).
3. South Bend Tribune (August–September 2026), the Donlon ballot litigation: the August 21 board ruling, the August 28 refiling, and Judge Manier's order of September 17, 2026.
4. Redress South Bend (April 30, 2026): Reese's re-election campaign framed on his service since 1990.