MANKATO — A remarkably competi­tive, often cutthroat, sometimes outrageous congressional primary race between Republicans Allen Quist and Mike Parry came to a less-than- dramatic con­clusion Tuesday night when Quist cruised to a relatively comfortable victory.



Voters across Minnesota’s Iowa-hugging 1st District picked Quist to be the Republican challenger to Democratic Congressman Tim Walz of Mankato in the Nov. 6 general election. In his first electoral victory since 1986, Quist had 54 percent of the vote to 46 percent for Parry.



“One reason for our suc­cess is that the public knows our debt crisis is a huge threat to our nation,” Quist said in a statement, referring to his top issue in the pri­mary election campaign.



The statement was released after Parry called Quist to concede the race just before 10:30 p.m. Walz’s cam­paign issued a statement at 10:45 p.m. congratulating Quist on his victory.



Parry also pledged to do whatever he could to help defeat Walz.



“ The No. 1 goal is to make sure Congressman Walz does­n’t go back to Washington,” Parry said in an interview with The Free Press.



But even as Quist and 1st District Republicans turn their eyes to Walz and the general election, they’re likely to remember the 2012 1st District primary race for decades to come. That became clear on April 21 (and the wee hours of April 22) at the Kato Ballroom as delegates tenaciously voted in round after round of balloting — never coming close to giving either Parry or Quist the required 60 percent for an endorsement.



Both candidates had pledged to drop from the race if their opponent was endorsed — meaning Tuesday’s primary wouldn’t have happened if a few more delegates had been swayed to switch sides.



But no matter what the candidates said in an endless series of speeches and attacks and pledges, all but a few of the 282 delegates stuck unwaveringly to their preferred candidate.



As the convention stretched past midnight into April 22, one delegate begged his fellow Republicans to give up and let the issue be decided in the primary election.



“ We have proven the definition of insanity by doing the same thing over and over and over again, expecting a different result,” he said.



Parry held the lead at the convention for nearly 10 hours and 14 rounds of balloting, prompting Quist to proclaim that he was the furthest to the right.



“ He knows I’m a farright conservative,” Quist said of Parry. “... He’s not on the far- right side. He’s on the center or the left of center.”



After 14 hours and 23 rounds of balloting, the convention ended deadlocked — putting it among the legendary endorsement marathons in Minnesota political history.



The primary election campaign that followed had a quiet beginning. By July, however, Parry was counterpunching with at least as many jabs as he had taken at the convention.



The Parry campaign dug deep into Quist’s past — bringing up controversial statements made in his 1994 run for governor about men having a “genetic predisposition” to be the ultimate authority in families and reminding voters of Quist’s foray into a Mankato adult bookstore in search of evidence that the store was promoting anonymous gay sex.



Parry suggested that Quist would be all but destined to lose on Nov. 6 if he was the Republican nominee.



In the final days of the campaign, Parry’s message was that he was uniquely qualified to build the coalitions of Democrats and Republicans necessary to work out solutions to the nation’s most pressing problems. It was a theme that was undermined by Parry’s feisty record during three years in the state Senate, by tweets referencing President Obama’s race, and finally by an allegation that Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton had taken “15 to 16 pills” during a meeting with Parry last year.



(Dayton called the claim a lie by a desperate candidate in the final week of his political career.) Quist’s campaign, when it wasn’t responding to Parry’s attacks, focused on his pledge to balance the federal budget in five years. He injected more than $ 200,000 of his own money into the campaign, including running TV ads in Mankato and Rochester.



Late Tuesday night, Parry was no longer claiming that Quist’s background would make it difficult for the Republican Party to topple Walz.



“ It’s time for all Republicans to rally around Allen,” Parry said. “ It’s going to be an interesting race.”