• PIERRE, S.D. (AP) -- The race for two spots on South Dakota's Public Utilities Commission has turned increasingly testy as Democratic challengers accuse Republican incumbents of letting utility companies charge customers too much and failing to protect farmers who lost $2.6 million when a grain-buying company went broke and couldn't pay them.
• Democrats Matt McGovern and Nick Nemec jumped into the race in June, castigating Republican commissioners Chris Nelson and Kristie Fiegen for their handling of the failure of Anderson Seed Co. of Redfield. They later criticized the GOP incumbents for granting a power company too large an increase in electricity rates.
• "We need commissioners who will stand up for consumers and farmers, not the utilities the commission regulates," said McGovern, a Sioux Falls lawyer and grandson of the late U.S. Sen. George McGovern.
• Nelson and Fiegen contend they've held down utility rates and have done everything possible under current law to help farmers who sold sunflowers to the failed grain-buying company.
• "We did, in fact, do our job," said Nelson, a former secretary of state.
• The outcome of the two races will determine the balance of power on the three-member commission that regulates natural gas, electric and telephone utilities, and grain warehouses. The third commissioner, Gary Hanson, is not up for election this year.
• The outcome also reaches into voters' pocketbooks because the commission determines rates and the quality of service offered by utility companies.
• PUC commissioners serve six-year terms. In most years, only one seat is on the ballot.
• Nelson, 48, was appointed to the commission two years ago to replace Dusty Johnson, who resigned after winning re-election to become Gov. Dennis Daugaard's chief of staff. Nelson is now running for the remaining four years of that term. He is being challenge by Nemec, 54, a former state lawmaker and farmer from Holabird.
• Fiegen, 50, is a former state legislator from Sioux Falls and president of Junior Achievement of South Dakota. She also was appointed to serve the final two years of another commissioner who resigned. Fiegen is now seeking a full six-year term against the 40-year-old McGovern. Also in the race is Libertarian Russell Clarke, 52, of Sioux Falls, a former college instructor who now works for an insurance company.
• Farmers began notifying the PUC in January that they weren't being paid for sun

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