Best of the Best (Fargo-Moorhead): How Voting Works & How to Win

One ballot, two states, and most Moorhead businesses don't realize it

The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead runs Best of the Best out of Fargo, North Dakota. A Moorhead, Minnesota business entering it isn't joining a Minnesota contest with a Minnesota results page, it's on the same metro-wide ballot as a business three miles away across the Red River in Fargo or West Fargo. That's the detail most Clay County entrants miss, and it changes where the real competition sits.

There's no separate Minnesota-only version of this to search for. Advertising.forumcomm.com/locations/best-of is the one ballot, one set of categories, one calendar, for the whole metro. A Dilworth hardware store and a downtown Fargo one, if they land in the same category, are direct competitors on results day.

That last row matters more here than in a single-vote-per-visit contest. A supporter who already voted "Best Bakery" hasn't used up their ballot; they can still vote in every other category the same day. See the Minnesota contest hub for how this fits alongside the state's other readers-choice programs.

The eight days nobody can do anything about

September 6 to September 14. That's the gap between when 2026 nominations close and when the finalist ballot goes live for public voting, and it's dead time by design, not an oversight.

Nothing to campaign for yet

InForum spends that stretch narrowing each category down from every write-in nomination to a finalist shortlist. There's no ballot to point supporters at during those eight days. Businesses that treat this as a slow week and pause outreach entirely aren't losing ground, since there's genuinely nothing live to vote on until September 14.

What's worth doing instead: confirm the business landed on the finalist ballot the moment it appears, then have the September 14 reminder ready to send same-day. Waiting a week into the voting window to start reminding people costs real days out of a three-week round. For campaign mechanics that apply to any award-style push once a ballot goes live, see award vote campaigns.

One vote per category per round changes the math

A contest capped at one total vote per person forces supporters to choose a single category to care about. Best of the Best doesn't work that way. The rule is one vote per category per round, so the same supporter can vote for a Fargo coffee shop in "Best Coffee" and a Moorhead bakery in "Best Bakery" in the same sitting, no conflict.

That seven-week span between finalist ballot going live and results posting is longer than most local polls run. A restaurant used to a one-week voting window elsewhere may under-pace this one, sending a single reminder and going quiet for six weeks. The restaurant vote campaign guide covers pacing reminders across a longer window like this one.

Moorhead and Fargo aren't split by category, only by who shows up

Clay County, Minnesota and Cass County, North Dakota sit on opposite banks of the same river and the same ballot. A Moorhead nominee doesn't get a state-level handicap or a separate bracket; it competes head-to-head against whatever Fargo or West Fargo business shares its category.

That's worth naming plainly because it cuts against how most readers-choice contests work. Minnesota's Best, the Star Tribune's statewide program, would put a Moorhead business up against competitors in Minneapolis or Duluth, cities it has almost nothing in common with locally. Best of the Best puts it up against the business three miles away that its own customers already cross the bridge to visit. The local rivalry is the real one here, not an abstract statewide comparison.

Businesses serving both sides of the river, or unsure which metro categories draw the heaviest competition, can compare notes with how a similar cross-market ballot plays out in Minnesota's Best, a separate statewide program with its own rules and timeline.

Why last year's category list isn't a safe reference this year

This page carries no year-by-year table of past Best of the Best winners, because InForum doesn't keep one in a fixed form either. Categories get added, merged, or renamed between cycles, so a screenshot from two years ago can point at a "Best Bakery" or "Best Coffee Shop" that has since been folded into a different label at inforum.com.

That has a direct effect on both sides of a campaign. Sizing up a rival's claim means checking the specific year, the exact current category name, and the November 27 results post itself, not a saved image from a prior fall. Writing a claim of your own works the same way in reverse: "Best of the Best 2026 nominee, [category]" holds up the moment the finalist ballot goes live, while a plain "Fargo-Moorhead's best" with the year and category stripped out doesn't survive a quick check against inforum.com.