Moorhead voters will pick their next mayor on November 3, choosing between three candidates vying to replace Mayor Shelly Carlson, who opted against seeking reelection in favor of an unsuccessful run for the Minnesota House District 4A. The city doesn’t hold a primary for the mayor’s office, so all three candidates will go straight to the general election ballot.
Lisa Borgen currently represents Ward 3 on the City Council. A former Clay County Attorney (1999-2007) and Minnesota District Court judge, she also spent a decade as an executive with American Crystal Sugar.
A CPA, DelRae Williams is a former mayor and retired owner of an accounting business who is seeking a return to the office. She was Moorhead’s first female mayor, holding office from 2013-2018, a rare five-year term due to the Moorhead Charter Commission changing municipal elections from odd to even years.
Craig “Whoot” Whaley is a newcomer to politics, having spent his career as an electrician and a construction manager. At age 64, he went back to school at M State, reportedly graduating at the top of his class in construction management.
Voting early
Minnesota allows any voter to cast an absentee ballot with no excuse required, starting 46 days before Election Day. This year, that window opens on September 18 and runs through the day before the November 3 general election. Early voting occurs at the Clay County Government Center near the corner of 12th Ave. S. and 34th St. S. in Moorhead.
Finding your polling place
Voters can confirm their registration, request an absentee ballot and look up their assigned polling location at mnvotes.gov, the Minnesota Secretary of State’s official voter portal.
Lisa Borgen
Lisa Borgen grew up in Moorhead, where she graduated from Moorhead High School and Minnesota State University Moorhead. She earned her law degree from the University of North Dakota School of Law, and established her own law practice in Moorhead. In 1998 and 2002, she was elected Clay County Attorney.
Borgen was appointed to the District Court bench by Governor Tim Pawlenty in 2006 and was elected to the judgeship in 2008. After more than seven years on the bench in Moorhead, Lisa transitioned to the private sector, where she served as Vice President of Administration at American Crystal Sugar Company for over a decade before retiring in 2024. Borgen was elected to the Moorhead City Council in 2024 and currently serves in that role, representing the Third Ward.
High Plains Reader: How has your background prepared you for this role?
Lisa Borgen: I have a strong educational background and have worked in government for many years. I appreciate the difference between the public and private sector. I have a proven record of steady judgment and fact-based decision-making. I have served on numerous non-profit boards, including in leadership roles. I understand the role of governance versus operations in an organization. I had an active role in advocating for the sales tax to fund the Moorhead Library and Community Center. I have been a champion for Moorhead for decades.
HPR: What are your top three campaign issues?
LB: One: safe, strong neighborhoods — effective public safety and emergency response. I support a third fire station in south Moorhead and believe we must follow a plan to grow responsibly, plan a budget and expand on a strategic timeline. We must also lean into community partnerships to build on neighborhood engagement and networks.
Two: responsible budgeting/quality services. We must protect taxpayer dollars through transparent spending, long-term planning and investments that deliver measurable value. The city has a fantastic leadership team working together to ensure the budget is lean and efficient. We have excellent public works, water, power, parks, etc., which are necessities for daily life. Every added amenity, program, equipment, etc. must be balanced with how we can pay for it without overburdening the taxpayer.
Three: economic opportunities. Moorhead needs to promote local business growth and housing developments of all kinds. Our tax base needs to be more business funded and less residential funded. We are lopsided in this regard, which is a burden for residents. To compete with Fargo, we need to enhance Minnesota’s border city legislation and provide more incentives for a wider array of businesses in Moorhead. This has been a priority for Moorhead for several years, and we need our state legislators to recognize the disparity in taxes and business mandates between our border cities.
HPR: What are the biggest opportunities and challenges for Moorhead?
LB: The people are the greatest asset of Moorhead — kids, students, young families, professionals, older adults, diversity of cultures and more. We embrace and welcome everyone in Moorhead. We have wonderful parks and recreation opportunities; we have a fantastic Community Center and Library, the Hjemkomst, Courts & Pints, colleges and universities, a variety of arts and music, and a growing downtown.
Our greatest challenge now is attracting and keeping business in all areas of Moorhead to enhance our ability to shop, eat and play in Moorhead. This challenge requires partnerships with developers, entrepreneurs and property owners, and must be supported by tax incentives and other offerings to allow us to compete with North Dakota.
Craig ‘Whoot’ Whaley
Craig “Whoot” Whaley is a lifelong Moorhead resident and an experienced project manager who said he is running for mayor to bring fiscal sanity, accountability, and common sense back to city hall.
Whaley’s history with Moorhead runs deep. A resident since 1961 and a 1969 graduate of Moorhead High School, Craig is the son of Edwin, a dedicated traveling salesman, and Janet, a beloved public school teacher who spent years shaping young minds at north Moorhead’s Washington Elementary.
Whaley also attended MSUM, and he raised his own family here in Moorhead. He is the proud father of Jason and Jessica, a grandfather to seven, and a great-grandfather to three.
High Plains Reader: How has your background prepared you for this role?
Craig ‘Whoot’ Whaley: Craig understands the value of a dollar because he has worked hard for every single one. From shoveling snow and picking berries at age 12, to driving the very first city buses in the Fargo-Moorhead area, Craig has never backed down from a challenge. He helped build Moorhead’s first cable TV system from the ground up, climbing poles and splicing equipment. He then spent decades mastering the electrical trade, culminating in a successful 17-year tenure as Service Manager for Moorhead Electric.
When life threw six major back surgeries his way, Craig didn’t stop. At age 64, he went back to school at M State, graduating at the top of his class with a degree in construction management. He knows how structures are built, how budgets operate and how to manage complex labor and materials efficiently.
Craig is running for mayor because he loves Moorhead, but he cannot stand by and watch city leadership run it into the ground. He offers a clear-eyed look at the issues facing the community.
HPR: What are your top three campaign issues?
CW: One: revitalizing downtown. Moorhead has suffered from decades of mismanagement that has stripped away the core of the city’s business district. Craig will focus on realistic development that actually brings businesses back.
Two: stopping the money pits: While there are merits to a new high school with more modern technology and a new community center and library, the costs and the way the past leaders have gone about it has put a greater burden on the residents, such as the new high school, so over budget, that taxpayers had to bail it out with an extra $6 million just to run it. (Editor’s note: The city council, including the mayor, has no legal authority to regulate the Independent School District 152 – Moorhead Area Public Schools – tax levy or spending decisions.)
Three: protecting taxpayers. Property taxes keep skyrocketing while the actual infrastructure goes down. Craig believes the city must stop treating taxpayers like an endless piggy bank.
Moorhead doesn’t need more career politicians or empty promises. It needs a builder and a working-class leader who knows how to say “no” to wasteful spending. Craig Whaley is ready to put his lifetime of experience to work to put Moorhead back on the right path.
DelRae Williams
Williams is a retired certified public accountant (with her own successful practice for many years), former Moorhead Mayor and a doer. She lives in downtown Moorhead with her spouse of almost 45 years and has a son and daughter, who both have continued to make Moorhead their home.
High Plains Reader: How has your background prepared you for this role?
DelRae Williams: Two things prepared me well to be a mayor. My background as a CPA in public accounting gave me the breadth of understanding how fund accounting works and made me able to understand the numbers enough to ask the right questions. After watching the former Council work past midnight on the budget only to move 500,000 to the next year, and have three of them tell me that they didn’t understand what happened, I knew we needed to change how we budget — and I did. My role as accountant to businesses also helped me work with and understand new businesses.
Secondly, my ability to listen and understand gave me a good relationship with our community. And they gave me a good understanding of their priorities.
HPR: What are your top three campaign issues?
DW: My top three issues are affordable housing, a third fire station and to bring civility back. I have a number of other things, but these are the first I’d like to focus on.
After my first term, I worked with a couple developers and helped them connect with the city. Through that, I learned of some issues I would like to shift to make it easier to bring affordable housing projects to fruition.
We talked about a third fire station towards the end of my term. The amount of incidents has made it more apparent that we need a third station soon.
In my first run for mayor, civility was a key reason I put my hat in. We don’t need to agree but our decision making shouldn’t be colored by infighting. I made my case and stuck with it. It worked. I suspect they were happy to leave it behind too.
HPR: What are the biggest opportunities and challenges for Moorhead?
DW: I think challenges are just opportunities to do better. I think completing our downtown revision will have its challenges, but it just means we should have a good vision built with our community.
Communication with our community needs attention. I will start my “Coffees with the Mayor” again. Maybe add some, based on issues we can help tackle together.
