The biggest political race on the county level this year is the only race where the incumbent is being challenged: the Mower County Auditor/Treasurer position.

Longtime auditor/treasurer Doug Groh is hoping for a third term in office while Adams farmer Steven Reinartz hopes to unseat Groh.

The race boils down to experience vs. new leadership as Groh, who has worked with the county for close to 25 years, contends with Reinartz, who has farmed for many years but recently sold his dairy cows.

“I’ve been a farmer all my life, and I was looking for something different, some new challenge,” Reinartz said.

Reinartz is no relation to Mower County Commissioner Jerry Reinartz.

Groh has worked as the county auditor/treasurer for the past eight years and is touting his experience dealing with tax forfeitures, land records, election management and more.

“The job is interesting,” he said. “It’s a multi-faceted job, and you deal with many various issues.”

If re-elected, Groh said he’d like to work on bringing Mower County tax statements digital so people could pay them online, as well as offer an option to pay tax statements through credit card.

“We’ve implemented improvements in the tax processes, collections and I want to improve on that in the future,” he said.

Reinartz said he is mainly interested in running for election to get a change in the office, as Groh has been known to clash at times with the Mower County Board of Commissioners. Groh said he has rarely clashed with the board, but decided to run for re-election after he was approached by his staff, previous commissioners and other people in the community to continue his job.