Election 2026: US House, District 4

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Such a delightfully straightforward race. On the ballot:

Betty McCollum (DFL)
Paul Wikstrom (Republican)

Betty McCollum is a solidly progressive Democrat. My main complaint about her is that she’s less fighty than she could be, as a Dem from a safe seat, but in general she votes the way I would like her to vote.

Paul Wikstrom is a Republican (which in itself is reason to vote against him). He’s a software engineering manager at Raytheon (per his LinkedIn), where he has worked for eight years. (Before that he worked for 17 years at Medtronic, so he’s someone who left the medical device industry to build weapons systems.)

His website talks about affordability but of course doesn’t blame any of the current issues on Trump’s tariffs or his pointless war on Iran. Instead, it suggests eliminating taxes on tips, overtime, and estates. (I would love to know, but am not inclined to do the math to figure out, how many more dollars would pass untaxed via an elimination of the estate tax vs. an elimination of taxes on overtime and tips. As it stands, the first $15 million of an estate is excluded from the estate tax already.)

He also talks a bunch about fraud and how it’s bad, so during the primary I sent him an e-mail to ask if he would support HR 7852 (the “No Getting Rich in Congress Act”) and HR 8309 (a law that would prevent Presidents from enriching themselves with public funds)? He did not respond.

I am going to vote for Betty McCollum, obviously!

This seems like a good year to fundraise for a trans nonprofit, so I’m fundraising this year for TIGERRS. I don’t have a Patreon, and a fundraiser lets me see in a tangible way that people value my work, which is really helpful as a motivator. (This project is a lot of work.) I raised $7,230 during primary season so I’ve raised the goal.

I also have a new book out! Obstetrix is about an obstetrician who gets kidnapped by a cult because they want someone on hand to deliver their babies; it’s a story about enduring, surviving, and not giving up. You can buy it anywhere fine books are sold, and I’ve been doing my best to keep Uncle Hugo’s, Moon Palace, and Dreamhaven Books in signed copies.

Election 2026: US Senate

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Welcome to election season, everybody! I’m going to start out with one of the easy ones, the race for US Senate. The tl;dr here is to vote for Peggy Flanagan! On the ballot:

Peggy Flanagan (DFL)
Michele Tafoya (Republican)
Rebecca Whiting (Libertarian)
Marisa Simonetti (Independent)

Marisa Simonetti (Independent)

Let’s kick things off with the weirdo. Marisa Simonetti is the woman who illegally rented out her basement as an Airbnb, then got mad at the tenant for asking if she could bring in pest control to deal with a spider infestation, and proceeded to try to harass/intimidate her into leaving. It was the part where she tossed a tarantula at the tenant that got all the news coverage, but she also contacted this woman’s abusive ex through social media and told him to “come get her,” stole the groceries she’d had delivered, and broke down the door in order to enter the basement apartment (so that she could toss the tarantula, along with tacks and nails. She also sprayed fart spray.)

After a bunch of delays this actually went to trial this summer. Marisa fired her lawyer (I bet because her lawyer had negotiated a guilty plea and a $300 fine, which is what Marisa’s co-defendant got) and defended herself. The jury found her guilty and she was sentenced to 90 days in the workhouse (which sounds incredibly Victorian but is just the Minnesota term for the county facility where people serve short sentences, possibly because it’s set up to allow for work release.)

Every time I’ve posted to Bluesky about this, someone has asked if the tarantula is OK. She actually shook it out of the terrarium onto the stairs, she didn’t fling it, but I have no updates on the tarantula and have no idea what happened to it.

Anyway, if reading this didn’t convince you not to vote for Marisa, you can watch a 25-minute video providing an edited-together set of police bodycam videos (with some additional footage filmed by the tenant) here. Note: the voiceover (which I think is a synthesized voice) mispronounces Edina, which annoyed me immensely. If you want to skip to the funniest (to me) bit of the video, that’s here, with the following exchange:

Marisa (yelling to be heard over the deafeningly loud praise-and-worship music she’s blasting): She’s an attorney, she’s playing the little games, whatever. I don’t know why she’s here. I would like to find out why she’s here.

Cop: So you didn’t rent to her or anything like that?

Marisa: You keep asking me that question and I think that’s something that everybody is trying to stick it to Marisa and what we need to not do right here is stick it to Marisa, what we need to do is pray to Jesus.

(The video then cuts to the tenant showing the cops the rental agreement. Marisa did, in fact, rent out the basement to this woman, that’s why she was there! Also, just reading the news articles makes Marisa sound unhinged but the video really takes it to a whole new level.)

In order to get on the ballot, Marisa had to get 2,000 people to sign a petition. If you were one of those people, consider doing at least five minutes of due diligence the next time someone asks for your signature.

Rebecca Whiting (Libertarian)

Rebecca is kind of a classic Libertarian candidate in a couple of ways, in that she manages to combine “vaguely tempting” with “oh my god, what?” She’s anti-corporation and anti-war (vaguely tempting!) but she takes her anti-foreign-intervention beliefs all the way into isolationism. She’s also anti-tax and anti-regulation without any particular discussion of how society would function if we stopped taxing anything and whether her emphatic pro-deregulation stance includes the belief that it should be legal to sell chicken salad that’s been sitting out at room temperature for 8 hours, we can just run our own tests if we’d like to avoid food poisoning. (Having watched her video from the 2024 Farmfest I think, yeah, she thinks food safety regulations are tyranny.)

Do I think there are regulations that are annoying: absolutely. Do I want the government regulating the companies that produce the food, cosmetics, and drugs that I put in my body: also absolutely.

Her commitment to deregulation does not include women’s health; she thinks abortion should be illegal. (“Murder already is illegal, and we should quit trying to redefine what a human is based on their stage of development.”) She further elaborates on her position here: “I want to see a pro-life movement that doesn’t just care about unborn babies, but our mothers as well, that supports pregnancy centers and makes help more accessible through churches, non profits, and charities.” Worth noting, she wants pregnant women supported through churches, non profits, and charities — not through WIC, food stamps, Medicaid, or literally any of the other supports provided by the government. (I haven’t seen her specifically address EMTALA anywhere but it would go thoroughly against her other philosophies not to oppose it. So I just want to note that removing all government supports for health care would result in a huge number of dead women and babies due to them being unable to afford emergency care. Private charity has historically never provided sufficient support to those in need.)

She posts quite a lot to Facebook so if you want to read a mix of memes, complaints about how Libertarians aren’t taken seriously (no automatic ballot access! she’s not being included in debates!) and occasional long posts about her views/personal history, you can find her Facebook here.

Michele Tafoya (Republican)

Michele Tafoya is a former sportscaster who got into politics in 2022; she chaired Kendall Quall’s gubernatorial campaign that year only to have him explicitly rule her out as a potential running mate on the grounds that she was pro-choice. (She thinks abortion should be legal up to 12 weeks.) She’s also been in favor of red flag laws in the past. I’m nonetheless confident that if elected she will not let her views stand in the way of doing whatever Trump tells her to do.

Her website has a big section on fraud and how bad it is. During the primary, I sent her an email to ask if she would support the Ban Presidential Plunder of Taxpayer Funds Act or any of the various proposed laws that would stop House and Senate members from insider trading on the knowledge they get through things like closed-door hearings. Her opponent wrote back immediately (“I would support both of those acts. I hate fraud, and corrupt politicians even more”) but Michele Tafoya did not.

She wants you to know that she loves cops (and presumably Flock cameras, though I couldn’t find any information specifically on her stance) and hates trans people. Also, in 2024 she posted to Twitter that she was going to be “fleeing (Minnesota) soon.” Her views are a mix of anodyne and reprehensible and the absolutely last thing Minnesota or the US needs is another Senator who will be a rubber stamp for Trump, which Michele absolutely will.

Peggy Flanagan (DFL)

There’s a lot I really like about Peggy, from the fact that she started in politics by serving on the Minneapolis School Board (which is, hands down, the most thankless, miserable elected office anyone could ever ask for), to her genuine warmth in person, to her long list of excellent policy proposals. But possibly the thing I like the most about Peggy is that she’s one of a very small number of politicians who truly seems to understand how grave the moment is in the fight to keep our Republic.

I am ABSOLUTELY going to vote for Peggy, and you should, too.

This seems like a good year to fundraise for a trans nonprofit, so I’m fundraising this year for TIGERRS. I don’t have a Patreon, and a fundraiser lets me see in a tangible way that people value my work, which is really helpful as a motivator. (This project is a lot of work.) I raised $7,230 during primary season so I’ve raised the goal.

I also have a new book out! Obstetrix is about an obstetrician who gets kidnapped by a cult because they want someone on hand to deliver their babies; it’s a story about enduring, surviving, and not giving up. You can buy it anywhere fine books are sold, and I’ve been doing my best to keep Uncle Hugo’s, Moon Palace, and Dreamhaven Books in signed copies.

Election 2026

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I am getting ready to start posting about the general election and my Big List of Races I’m Going to Write About turned out to be really useful in the primary (I literally printed it out and crossed stuff off) so here we go with a list of races I’m (hopefully) going to write about before November!

Governor & Lt. Governor
Attorney General
Secretary of State
State Auditor

US Senator
US House District 04 (St. Paul)
US House District 05 (Minneapolis)

Statewide Constitutional Amendment 1

Ramsey County Commissioner District 3
Ramsey County Commissioner District 5
Hennepin County Commissioner District 2
Hennepin County Commissioner District 3

(Hennepin County Commissioner District 4, Ramsey County Commissioner District 4, and Ramsey County Commissioner District 6 are unopposed.)

Hennepin County Sheriff
Hennepin County Attorney

(Ramsey County Sheriff and Ramsey County Attorney are unopposed.)

Saint Paul School Board At-Large (elect 3)
Minneapolis School Board At-Large (elect 2)
Minneapolis School Board District 1
Minneapolis School Board District 5

(Minneapolis School Board District 3 is unopposed.)

It does appear that none of the judicial races on Minneapolis or St. Paul ballots is contested, but there are a lot of names so let me know if I missed one.

And then all the State Legislative races, which I may do in a single go because they are all a Democrat (who will be fine) running against a Republican (nope).

State Senate District 59 (Bobby Joe Champion is unopposed)
State Senate District 60
State Senate District 61 (Scott Dibble is unopposed)
State Senate District 62 (Omar Fateh was challenged in the primary but is unopposed in the general)
State Senate District 63
State Senate District 64
State Senate District 65 (Note: the Republican appears on the ballot as “_ Rocco.”
State Senate District 66
State Senate District 67

State House District 59A (Fue Lee is unopposed)
State House District 59B
State House District 60A
State House District 60B (Mohamud Noor was challenged in the primary but is unopposed in the general)
State House District 61A (Katie Jones is unopposed)
State House District 61B (Jamie Long is unopposed)
State House District 62A (Aisha Gomez is unopposed)
State House District 62B
State House District 63A
State House District 63B
State House District 64A (Meg Luger-Nikolai is unopposed)
State House District 64B (Dave Pinto is unopposed)
State House District 65A (Samakab Hussein is unopposed)
State House District 65B (Sebastian Ellefson was challenged in the primary but is unopposed in the general)
State House District 66A
State House District 66B
State House District 67A
State House District 67B (Jay Xiong is unopposed)

If you’re consulting this and there’s some race I haven’t covered, I’ll go ahead and tell you that my recommendation in all the partisan races is going to be, VOTE FOR THE DEMOCRAT (yes, even Amy Klobuchar.)

Primary Election 2026 Sample Ballot / Index of Posts

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Minnesota’s primary election is TUESDAY, AUGUST 11TH, which is this coming Tuesday as I post this. For the convenience of everyone looking up races from the voting booth (or the people who are voting early and having trouble navigating the site), here are my endorsements and links to write-ups.

Important note: for the partisan primaries, you have to pick ONE side of the ballot. You can vote in all the Republican primaries or all the DFL primaries. You cannot vote for your favorite DFLer in the Senate race and then hop over to the Republican side and vote for your favorite Republican in the Governor’s race. However, there are also some nonpartisan primaries, and you can vote in those regardless of whether you voted in the Republican or DFL primary for the main election. They will probably be on the flip side of your ballot.

STATEWIDE

US Senate: Peggy Flanagan

Governor and Lieutenant Governor: Kobey J Layne and Paul Ference.

Attorney General: Keith Ellison

Secretary of State: Steve Simon (who is unopposed in the DFL primary)

Auditor: Zach Filipovich (who is unopposed in the DFL primary)

MINNEAPOLIS (or a subset thereof)

US House District 5: Ilhan Omar

MN Senate 62: Omar Fateh

MN House 60B: Mohamud Noor

Hennepin County Attorney (non-partisan): Cedrick Frazier

Hennepin County Commissioner, District 2 (non-partisan): Irene Fernando

Hennepin County Commissioner, District 3 (non-partisan): Marion Greene

Minneapolis School Board At-Large (non-partisan): Christin Crabtree and Collin Beachy

SAINT PAUL (or a subset thereof)

US House District 4: Betty McCollum

MN Senate 65: Robyn Gulley

MN House 65B: Sebastian Ellefson

Ramsey County Commissioner, District 5 (non-partisan): Rebecca Noecker (but I may revisit this in the general election)

If my work was helpful to you this year, please consider making a donation to my fundraiser for TIGERRS. I don’t have a Patreon, and a fundraiser lets me see in a tangible way that people value my work, which is really helpful as a motivator. (This project is a lot of work.)

ETA: You can also donate to my daughter’s fundraiser for the YMCA Camp Northern Lights STEPS (equity) program!

I also have a new book! Obstetrix is about an obstetrician who gets kidnapped by a cult because they want someone on hand to deliver their babies; it’s a story about enduring, surviving, and not giving up. You can buy it anywhere fine books are sold, and Uncle Hugo’s, Moon Palace, and Dreamhaven all (probably) have signed copies.

And that’s it — I’ll be back in September (or maybe late August) to start work on the general election. Spoiler: I will be voting for every single one of the DFLers on my ballot, even the ones I’m not wild about, and would recommend that other people do the same.

Primary Election 2026: Minnesota State Auditor

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On the DFL side of the ballot, this is uncontested and I would vote for Zack Filipovich. Since I expect the vast majority of my readers are voting in the DFL primary, this is just a “hey, check out THESE weirdos” post for everyone’s amusement. Well, also, just in case anyone searches for the State Auditor race.

On the Republican side there are three people running:

Scott Jensen
Nate George (GOP-endorsed)
Will Finn

Scott Jensen

You probably remember Scott Jensen. He’s the right-wing ghoul who lost to Tim Walz in 2022. He’s an antivaxxer, an ivermectin promoter and provider, and helped spread the gross urban legend that schools have litterboxes for students who identify as cats. (They do not.) He also promoted Trump’s big lie and is anti-abortion though maybe he no longer wants to ban it or maybe he just thinks he can’t or who even knows, really?

He really decisively lost the Republican party endorsement to Nate (77% to 23%). My suspicion is that the party faithful are as sick of him as I am.

Nate George

Nate is endorsed by the Minnesota GOP, by the MCCL (anti-abortion group) because he promised to do everything they want (note: the State Auditor does not have the power to do most of the stuff they’re asking for), and by a group called Moms for America which looks to be some sort of ladies’ auxiliary for the Tea Party assholes (with strong “doesn’t Gilead look nice?” vibes.)

Nate has some legitimate qualifications but also claimed to be a “Certified Fraud Examiner” when he is not a certified fraud examiner. He is currently studying for a test to become one; the certification also requires two years of experience which it doesn’t sound like he has. He may have also claimed to be a licensed peace officer when that licensure had lapsed but honestly, that feels more excusable. He’s also now calling it a “smear” that the DFL has talked about the fact that he lied about his credentials. He’s trying to undermine the article by saying it’s “required multiple published corrections.” The article in question has been updated multiple times, to add things like, “After publication of this story, the George campaign removed infographics from both Facebook posts and replaced them with new versions that list his Certified Fraud Examiner status as ‘Anticipated By September 2026.'” In other words, the corrections were not because they made errors, but because Nate’s campaign responded to being called out by changing the information on their website (as they should!)

On the plus side he does appear to know what the job involves (auditing local governments.)

Will Finn

Will Finn is a libertarian who ran for State Auditor four years ago as a Grassroots – Legalize Cannabis Party candidate. This year he’s running in the Republican primary, but his LinkTree has a link to a scan of his Libertarian Party membership fee payment invoice.

When there’s a libertarian running I’m always tempted to send them this comic (“The 24 Types of Libertarian” by Barry Deutsch) and ask which one they are. Will is anti-ICE, pro-weed, and smug. I do appreciate his anti-ICE stance.

Anyway, I am 100% going to vote for Zach, and I would encourage all of you to do the same!

This seems like a good year to fundraise for a trans nonprofit, so I’m fundraising this year for TIGERRS. I don’t have a Patreon, and a fundraiser lets me see in a tangible way that people value my work, which is really helpful as a motivator. (This project is a lot of work.)

I also have a new book! Obstetrix is about an obstetrician who gets kidnapped by a cult because they want someone on hand to deliver their babies; it’s a story about enduring, surviving, and not giving up. You can buy it anywhere fine books are sold, and Uncle Hugo’s, Moon Palace, and Dreamhaven all (probably) have signed copies.

Primary Election 2026: MN House 60B

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This is the South Minneapolis seat currently held by Mohamud Noor. On the ballot:

Mohamud Noor (Incumbent, DFL-endorsed)
Abdurrahman Mahmud

I’ll note that Mohamud Noor’s challenger is is on the ballot as Abdurrahman Mahmud, but commonly goes by Abdu Rahman and that’s how his website and social media refer to him; I’m going to call him Abdu in this post.

Mohamud Noor

Mohamud Noor was elected in 2018 after the cascade of vacancies set off by Lori Swanson deciding during the state DFL convention to run for governor. (Matt Pelikan challenged her for endorsement and successfully blocked her from getting a first-ballot endorsement. Lori Swanson, in a snit, dropped out of the race for Attorney General and ran for governor, instead. Keith Ellison ran for Attorney General, freeing up the House seat, Ilhan ran for the House seat, freeing up the legislative seat, and Mohamud Noor ran for and won the legislative seat.) Prior to being elected, he worked for the county in Human Services, and has continued work on human services-related stuff in the legislature, and the bills he was Chief Author of include a lot of health care and housing provisions. (Most recently, a bill introduced in May: “Partnerships for dental services provided in correctional facilities authorized, commissioner of corrections required to improve correctional facilities’ dental services, report required, and money appropriated.” I think that died in committee.)

My impression of him is that he’s hard working but relatively low profile. When I went looking for news articles where he was mentioned, I got lots of hits on the news releases from the Minnesota State House (“Session Daily,” you can find it here) and just a few hits on the local news outlets, like an interview he did with MPR about ICE last December. When I asked about the race on Bluesky, someone told me that his opponent challenged him for endorsement but “bombed the Q&A with bizarre answers” and Mohamud won endorsement on the first ballot 136-3.

Abdurrahman Mahmud (aka Abdu Rahman)

Abdu is a filmmaker who self-identifies as a Democratic Socialist, but his website doesn’t actually mention anything that’s all that different from what Mohamud wants to do. (Also, he is not endorsed by the local DSA.) I sent him an e-mail and got a prompt response that was AI-written (I’ve actually encountered a lot of stuff in this cycle that I suspected was AI-written but this one was particularly clear) and promised a more detailed response shortly. The more detailed response did arrive and had less of the “Written by ChatGPT” flavor to it.

He said he wanted to hold predatory landlords accountable (and specifically complained about Sherman Associates: “Tenants in the Cedar-Riverside high-rises face frequent water and electricity outages, annual rent hikes, and immediate eviction threats for minor delays, while the landlord fails to invest in basic repairs.”) He said that the Brian Coyle Center is managed by Pillsbury United Communities, which charges excessively high fees for the hall and basketball courts; he wants the center managed by the Park Board, instead. He objects to the development plans for Lot A in Cedar Riverside: “I will challenge the city and county’s decision to award “LOT A” to Sherman Associates for housing development. We are organising to reject suppressing our input and force the city to hear our voices … I will use my office if elected to shift the power dynamics.”

(Lot A is a parking lot at 1500 4th Street that I think of as “that parking lot by Mixed Blood Theater.” The city did an RFP process for it in 2019, and as I understand it, the plan is for Sherman Associates to build a rec center to replace the Brian Coyle center (the new rec center to be managed by the Park Board) with housing above it. This will mean losing the parking, and area businesses are not happy with the plan.)

Anyway, I’m totally willing to buy that Sherman sucks (are there big landlords in Minneapolis who don’t suck?) but it’s not clear to me how Abdu would be more successful than Mohamud at holding them accountable. (He noted that he was a renter and Mohamud is a homeowner, which: fair, but that doesn’t really answer the question.)

One other odd thing: he held a fundraiser in Seattle. When someone’s running for US Senate and holds an out-of-state fundraiser this is one of those things I basically expect. There are probably Seattleites who are invested in the Angie vs. Peggy race, just as there are people here invested in the Senate race in Michigan. A state legislative primary? Weird.

Fundamentally, this is one of the cases where I trust the neighbors who came together for what sounds like a completely uncomplicated endorsing convention. I would vote for Mohamud Noor.

This seems like a good year to fundraise for a trans nonprofit, so I’m fundraising this year for TIGERRS. I don’t have a Patreon, and a fundraiser lets me see in a tangible way that people value my work, which is really helpful as a motivator. (This project is a lot of work.)

I also have a new book! Obstetrix is about an obstetrician who gets kidnapped by a cult because they want someone on hand to deliver their babies; it’s a story about enduring, surviving, and not giving up. You can buy it anywhere fine books are sold, and Uncle Hugo’s, Moon Palace, and Dreamhaven all (probably) have signed copies.

Primary Election 2026: Hennepin County Commissioner, District 2

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Irene Fernando is the current incumbent, is running for re-election, and is DFL-endorsed. Three people are running against her. Two candidates will advance to the November election. On the ballot:

Irene Fernando (Incumbent, DFL-endorsed)
Sharon El-Amin
Viviana Salazar
Makeda Zulu

There was a candidate forum earlier in July, which you can watch here. Irene, Sharon, and Makeda participated.

Back on July 7th, I asked on Bluesky for more information on this race, because county races tend to be low profile and it’s unusual for an incumbent to have multiple fairly serious challengers. I was told that Irene has been not great at answering e-mails (although she’s working on getting better) and that Sharon El-Amin has been banging that particular drum while also running to her right.

So: I watched the LWV forum. Sharon talked repeatedly about how she’d have a newsletter and listen to constituents and make sure she was doing what constituents wanted, and … okay, you know, here’s the thing (which Irene commented on late in the forum, actually), there are several hundred thousand people in Hennepin County and they often want different things; if there’s a project that will benefit 50,000 people and there are 50 very loud opponents, and you push it through anyway, that doesn’t mean you just weren’t listening. Also, an awful lot of people do not pay close attention on a daily basis to what every level of their local government is up to. How many newsletters of various kinds arrive in your e-mail on a weekly basis, and how many of them do you read? Those 50 loud people opposed to whatever the project is, they’re often absolutely incensed that they weren’t told about this project earlier. Usually there were meetings, surveys, listening sessions, and they missed it. (Sometimes because they weren’t paying attention; often, honestly, because at any given time, a lot is going on, and it’s extremely easy to miss stuff.) The idea that if the Hennepin County Board District 2 commissioner just implemented a newsletter this would solve the problem is frankly hilarious. People wouldn’t sign up for it! Or they would, and then they’d never open it, and they’d still be just as mad. (I’m not anti-newsletter, to be clear, some people would read it and they’d be better informed! but yes, it was very clear from the way Sharon was framing stuff that she was sending out an “I would listen to you and prioritize your concerns and also it’s not your fault for not paying attention, they should have told you better” dogwhistle to people who hate bus lanes and bike lanes and transit improvements that might take away 2 parking spaces and so on and so forth.)

Irene Fernando

I like what Irene has done as commissioner; I value her continued work on the Blue Line extension and on housing. In addition to the DFL endorsement, Irene is endorsed by Ilhan Omar and a long list of Minneapolis (and Hennepin County) state legislators.

Sharon El-Amin

Sharon is currently on the Minneapolis School Board and her endorsements include several of her colleagues on the board, as well as several of my least favorite City Council reps (LaTrisha Vetaw, Michael Rainville.) She mentioned at the forum that she works for the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office; from her LinkedIn, I think she does something administrative. (It says “Office Associate.”)

I have a couple of big concerns about Sharon. Back when she ran for school board in 2018, a homophobic and transphobic Facebook post she’d made in 2016 surfaced (link goes to the Wayback Machine archive because the City Pages is no longer online). She apologized for it, kinda. So far as I know she hasn’t promoted any transphobic policies on the Minneapolis School Board but for obvious reasons I’m still hesitant. There are also her very clear “running to the right of the incumbent” endorsements; I think it’s likely that she would shoot down improvements to transit and bike infrastructure. She’s clearly the preference of the Jacob Frey contingent.

Oh! Also! They had a question at the forum about data centers. Sharon said she’d have to learn more about them, which seems like an incredibly weird response for the “I would, of course, talk to my constituents and do the things they want” candidate, because data centers have emerged in the last few months as this startlingly unifying issue across party, state, and rural/urban divides: everyone hates data centers. (Irene was emphatically anti-data-center.)

Viviana Salazar

Viviana Salazar didn’t make it to the forum and hasn’t posted to most of her social media since March. (She has had a couple of Facebook posts.) At the DFL convention that endorsed Irene, she wasn’t able to get enough seconds to her nomination to be considered. I appreciate that she apparently prioritized fundraising for rent relief over fundraising for her campaign but I also just don’t see much activity. Honestly, the fact that despite door-knocking ahead of the convention she wasn’t able to get enough people there to even get on the ballot for endorsement does not suggest that she’d be particularly effective in office. She does have some endorsements on her website, including Pearll Warren, one of the other City Council reps I don’t like.

Makeda Zulu

Makeda did make it to the forum and was sort of an interesting wild card but not one I’d be super inclined to vote for. There’s a particular type of candidate I see sometimes where they’ve arrived on the scene from smaller-scale community service work, where on some level they have just not fully wrapped their head around how big the political district is, and I think that’s kinda where Makeda is. She talked about working with the Birth Justice Collaborative, which does advocacy and support for Black and Indigenous women who are giving birth (which is so important because Black and Indigenous women die during childbirth at terrifyingly high rates compared to white women); she talked about working with a group that teaches people to make air filtration systems from box fans. (I’m guessing like these.) And, in response to the question about closing the HERC she said she’d form a committee of the people who know how to do it, which … I feel like this has probably been done. In response to a question about the county’s role in public safety, she talked about helping seniors install grab bars. Anyway, while I think Sharon is well aware that her “I’ll just listen to my constituents” schtick is a schtick, I think Makeda is in a place where “I’ll just talk to everyone” seems like a plan.

She seems like a really good person aside from her hatred of bike lanes but I don’t think she’d be effective at the job. (Even though I’m a fan of grab bars.)

A final note about Irene — at the forum, they got asked at one point about how exactly you deal with the competing priorities of all your (many) constituents. Irene responded first. “There are about 200,000 residents in District 2. […] Balancing is difficult, so for me, I have focused on vision, outcomes, and data. I am very very aware that I cannot talk to every resident individually.” I think it’s important for local politicians (or, really, their staff) to respond to constituents when they contact the office with concerns, but fundamentally the thing I find most important is that my representatives share my values, have a vision that’s founded on their values, and make decisions based on those values. It’s clear to me that Irene shares my values around housing, transit, public safety, and the other big issues that the county leads on, far more than Sharon does. I would absolutely vote for Irene, both in the primary and in November.

This seems like a good year to fundraise for a trans nonprofit, so I’m fundraising this year for TIGERRS. I don’t have a Patreon, and a fundraiser lets me see in a tangible way that people value my work, which is really helpful as a motivator. (This project is a lot of work.)

I also have a new book! Obstetrix is about an obstetrician who gets kidnapped by a cult because they want someone on hand to deliver their babies; it’s a story about enduring, surviving, and not giving up. You can buy it anywhere fine books are sold, and Uncle Hugo’s, Moon Palace, and Dreamhaven all (probably) have signed copies.


Primary Election 2026: Minneapolis School Board (At-Large)

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There are two open seats, and this race is not done with Instant Runoff, you just vote for your two favorites. After the primary, four people will advance. Five are running, so only one is actually getting dropped before the general election. This is a nonpartisan race, but the DFL does do endorsements and has endorsed two of the candidates.

This race appears on all ballots in Minneapolis. There are also some seats that cover just part of the city that will be up for election in November, but I’m pretty sure none have primaries.

On the ballot:

Christin Crabtree (DFL-endorsed)
Stephanie Johnson
Clifton “CJ” Henderson
Collin Beachy (incumbent, DFL-endorsed)
Michael Baskins

There was a forum sponsored by the League of Women Voters on July 16th; it was attended by Christin, Collin, and Stephanie, and you can watch it here. (You can also read a liveblog of it on Bluesky.)

Clifton “CJ” Henderson

CJ Henderson has no website, no Facebook, and did not reply to my e-mail asking if they had anything about their goals or campaign they wished to share (though possibly my e-mail went to spam). They do have a single Instagram post which I have linked to. The post says, “I’m running to bring fresh leadership, stronger student support, transparency, and real community engagement to MPS. This campaign is about students, families, educators, and the future of Minneapolis.” The complete lack of other communication with the public about the campaign gives me a lot of skepticism about this person’s commitment to transparency or real community engagement. I would not vote for CJ Henderson.

Michael Baskins

Michael Baskins is an engineer who previously ran for Minneapolis City Council in Ward 2. He was funded by We Love Minneapolis but not endorsed by All Of Minneapolis, possibly because he spent 20% of his campaign funds on clothing and wound up in court over it. His school board campaign website does not mention his City Council run and he’s not wearing a suit in any of the photos.

The fact that Baskins has made super questionable choices with campaign money seems kind of disqualifying for a school board position. (Also, the fact that he was supported in his campaign run by the Greater Frey Mayoral Campaign is a big strike against him.) I wouldn’t vote for him.

Stephanie Johnson

Stephanie Johnson came to the school board forum but does not have a website. When I e-mailed her last month she said she was working on getting one up. (I don’t think this has happened.) Here’s what she added regarding her background, goals, etc:

– I have been a MPS parent since 2017. [classroom volunteer, reading intervention support, yearbook committee, pta, and site council at both elementary and middle school (MPS)]

– I have been teaching since 1999. [primarily as a community college instructor [psychology, ELL, and reading & study skills, but also as a K-12 special education teacher and reading teacher; multiple faculty leadership roles and collegewide work, including shared governance]

As an at-large candidate, my goal is to strengthen the education experience for current MPS students. In other words, work to ensure what MPS says students experience and learn is happening for all students in all MPS schools. Much of this relies on the conditions of learning and teaching and as one of nine directors on the school board I will invest time in listening, asking questions, seeking answers, and considering all possible options in order to provide a more stable foundation from which to grow. 

For me, this run for office is an opportunity to serve my community. While I am an expert in my family’s experience with MPS, I know and want to know more about the experience of others because our children, those currently in school and those in each next generation deserve the very best we can do and to me, we are not yet there. 

I am not backed, financially or otherwise, by any group. I am a one-person campaign, my own manager.

I only watched part of the forum. What stood out was that she talked a lot about working conditions for staff (including administrative staff) and retention of teachers and administrators. She was also a slow talker who was frustrated by the time constraints of a forum.

Collin Beachy

Collin is a special education teacher who has served on the school board for four years and is running for another term. Everyone seems to genuinely like him. School Board member is a job that pays poorly, takes up a lot more time than it’s supposed to, involves getting yelled at a bunch, and is in general a factory for burnout, which means people rarely run for re-election and this creates real issues with institutional memory. So I approach Minneapolis school board races with a pro-incumbent bias when someone’s running again, and I definitely think Collin would continue to be an asset to the school board.

Christin Crabtree

Christin is someone I know through social media (Minneapolis Bluesky, mainly); she was heavily involved in organizing against ICE this winter. She’s the kind of person who years ago I’d say “have you ever thought about running for School Board?” and I’m excited that she’s running.

I would vote for Christin and Collin. I’ll note that I think Christin, Collin, Stephanie, and Michael are all going to make it through the primary because CJ doesn’t seem to actually be campaigning in any way. If you’re unhappy with Christin or Collin I would pick Stephanie over Michael despite her lack of a website. This is one of the years where I think the DFL endorsees are both good choices and the obvious people to vote for, though.

This seems like a good year to fundraise for a trans nonprofit, so I’m fundraising this year for TIGERRS. I don’t have a Patreon, and a fundraiser lets me see in a tangible way that people value my work, which is really helpful as a motivator. (This project is a lot of work.)

I also have a new book! Obstetrix is about an obstetrician who gets kidnapped by a cult because they want someone on hand to deliver their babies; it’s a story about enduring, surviving, and not giving up. You can buy it anywhere fine books are sold, and I’ve been doing my best to keep Uncle Hugo’s, Moon Palace, and Dreamhaven in signed copies.

Primary Election 2026: Ramsey County Commissioner, District 5

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This is the seat that’s been held by Rafael Ortega for basically forever. Last year, St. Paul City Council rep Rebecca Noecker announced a run against him; Rafael Ortega bowed out and endorsed State Representative Maria Isa Pérez-Vega.

It is tempting to just put this post off until the general because this is only a primary because it’s a three-way race due to perennial candidate Charles Barklind.

On the ballot in the primary:

Charles S. Barklind
Maria Isa Pérez-Vega
Rebecca Noecker

Charles Barklind is, to quote the Pioneer Press article about the race, an 82-year-old retired golf caddy and newspaper delivery man. He’s run repeatedly for this seat. I dug up a few nuggets of information about him in 2014. No one needs to vote for him.

Rebecca has been on the St. Paul City Council since 2016 and had no serious opposition last time she ran. Maria Isa served two terms in the Minnesota House, running for the first time in 2022. This is my district, and I went to the DFL convention as a delegate, where we adjourned after one ballot because it was a 50/50 split almost to the vote. (You need 60% of the ballot to get endorsed. It was super clear that we were not going to be endorsing anyone that day.)

I went to the convention as a Rebecca supporter, and I’m planning to vote for her, for the following reasons:

  • Rebecca ran for this office because she was dissatisfied with the job Rafael Ortega (and the County Board in general) were doing. She goes into some specific detail about that on her website. I appreciate that she’s willing to talk about what’s wrong with the current situation and I find it pretty persuasive. Maria Isa is running very much as Rafael Ortega’s successor, and given an actual alternative, I think I would prefer the person who cites as a specific goal that she will actually see projects through to the end.
  • Rebecca’s case for herself is that in terms of preparation for the job, she has worked for ten years on the City Council (a job where you’re one of seven members, like the County Board) as opposed to in the Legislature, where you’re one of 134; she thinks this is better preparation. Also, on the current County Board there are multiple former legislators, no former St. Paul City Council reps.
  • The “one of seven rather than 134” is an additionally compelling argument to me because every time I hear Maria Isa give a speech, she loses me somewhere in the tangents. (Here’s an example of her style.) Maria Isa is inspiring and passionate and energetic and I wind up at the end of her speeches having no idea what point she was actually making. If Maria Isa were the Democrat and Rebecca were a Republican I’d shrug and vote for Maria Isa, but I think overall their goals are mostly the same, and I think Rebecca is likely to be more effective.

Here’s a sample of what I mean. On their websites, they both talk about West 7th, which is in dire need of a rebuild and redesign. Maria Isa says:

West 7th Street is a major artery for our district and our region. I am ready to work with partners at the Met Council, the city of Saint Paul, the Minnesota Department of Transportation and our staff at the county to find a solution that fixes the street and provides better transit and bike/ped infrastructure. All have committed to this work so I am more hopeful than ever that we can get this done.

Rebecca’s website goes into a lot more detail but includes a history of the problem:

Ramsey County spent two decades and allocated $730 million to the Riverview Corridor project aimed at revitalizing West 7th:

  • Modern streetcar to improve mobility
  • Replacing Highway 5 Mississippi River Bridge
  • Additional streetscaping

These design challenges proved too steep, and the County officially, and abruptly, abandoned it in September 2024.

In June 2025, the Ramsey County Board voted unanimously to reallocate the $730 million previously allocated to the Riverview Corridor project.

She then says:

As of January 2026, The City of St. Paul, MnDOT, Ramsey County, and Metro Transit have made a commitment to West 7th:

  • Rebuilding and repaving West 7th led by MnDOT
  • Arterial Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) led by Metro Transit

After decades of planning and reallocating $730 million intended for West 7th, it is clear that the County left behind this vital corridor.

West 7th deserves thoughtful, effective investment that supports both the immediate needs and long-term goals of the neighborhood and broader city.

Now that there is a new, workable concept, I want to bring Ramsey County back to the table and ready to invest in this much-needed project.

(Me again.) The thing about saying you’re “ready to work” on this when the county spent so many years doing studies and making plans and having community meetings and then just shelved the whole project is that it feels almost disingenuous to me. After years of planning that got shelved, West 7th is dangerous and unpleasant and also collapsing and “I’m ready to tackle the problem!” doesn’t feel like enough.

All that said, there are several months until November (where, as I noted before, it will absolutely be Maria Isa vs. Rebecca.) And I’m sure there are issues where I am more aligned with Maria Isa. I may revisit this in October. (If it’s October and you’re looking, you can probably safely assume that my reasoning has not significantly changed.)

This seems like a good year to fundraise for a trans nonprofit, so I’m fundraising this year for TIGERRS. I don’t have a Patreon, and a fundraiser lets me see in a tangible way that people value my work, which is really helpful as a motivator. (This project is a lot of work.)

I also have a new book! Obstetrix is about an obstetrician who gets kidnapped by a cult because they want someone on hand to deliver their babies; it’s a story about enduring, surviving, and not giving up. You can buy it anywhere fine books are sold, and I’ve been doing my best to keep Uncle Hugo’s, Moon Palace, and Dreamhaven in signed copies.

Primary Election 2026: Minnesota Secretary of State

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I’m distracted by the wildfires, air quality, etc., so I’m taking a break from the serious posts to bring you the Republican primary for Secretary of State. Incumbent Secretary of State Steve Simon is unopposed on the DFL side of the primary race, and he’s great, I will absolutely be voting for him in the fall (and also in August because I like that sense of having filled out my whole ballot). The Republicans are choosing between the following two candidates:

Tad Jude
Wendy Phillips

Both of these people are so terrible.

Tad Jude’s name may ring a bell because he ran for Hennepin County Attorney four years ago. From my post at the time: “His website features an ad (I guess) in which he wanders around in a trench coat looking aloofly into the distance with a dramatic soundtrack that mostly made me think, ‘this looks like the worst Batman movie of all time.'” In the intervening time he also ran for US House in the third congressional, losing to Kelly Morrison, and I’ll note he ran for HCA in 2022 after trying and failing to get the GOP endorsement to run for Attorney General. Prior to all of these failed elections he was a District Judge for a decade, retiring in 2021. Minnesota has a mandatory retirement age for judges — you have to quit when you’re 70. (I increasingly think this is a good idea and we should extend the idea of mandatory retirement to a lot more offices.)

Of course, as a Republican running for office, he wants to make voting much more difficult. He supports the SAVE Act and also the “SAVE Minnesota Act,” which died in committee but was a Minnesota-specific version of the SAVE act with all its many problems, like that if you don’t have a passport, your proof of citizenship is your birth certificate, and you’ve changed your name, you’re fucked.

He’s the one who was endorsed by the State GOP at their convention, and if you browse his social media you’ll see that he has worked hard to project an air of “normal, respectable sort of Republican” as opposed to “welcome to the batshit wing of the clown party.” I have e-mailed him to ask him who he thinks won the 2020 election; I will let you know if I hear back. ETA: He responded! “As a district court Judge I heard several election related cases, but no cases involving that contest. I recognize that Joseph P. Biden was certified as the winner of the 2020 presidential election.” I feel like “I recognize that Joseph P. Biden was certified as the winner” is a way to avoid saying “Joe Biden won in 2020, obviously,” but that is, sadly, at least a small step up from most of his party.

I don’t need to ask Wendy Phillips that question, as she’s endorsed by Mike Lindell of MyPillow / full-time-election-denier fame. (Mike Lindell just got endorsed for governor by Donald Trump.) Her website looks like a thinner and less detailed version of Tad’s website but her Facebook page has a post from June about an event where you can learn more about “Constitutional Sheriffs.” What’s a Constitutional Sheriff? That would be a sheriff who’s convinced he’s the supreme law of the land, answerable to no one, and empowered to interfere in election administration (more info here). Wendy is the sort of candidate who makes me think I need a ranking system for fringe beliefs because this is the sort of wackadoodle stuff that even a lot of extremely right-wing weirdos will edge away from.

I’m not sure what Wendy does for a living because I couldn’t find her LinkedIn and her website doesn’t tell you much about her background, just her political/civic experience (she was a Planning and Zoning Commissioner for Oronoco, MN, and her Senate District Republican Party chair — the GOP calls your Senate District your BPOU, “Base Political Operating Unit”).

Anyway. Don’t vote for either of these people! They’re both awful! Vote for Steve Simon!

This seems like a good year to fundraise for a trans nonprofit, so I’m fundraising this year for TIGERRS. I don’t have a Patreon, and a fundraiser lets me see in a tangible way that people value my work, which is really helpful as a motivator. (This project is a lot of work.)

I also have a new book! Obstetrix is about an obstetrician who gets kidnapped by a cult because they want someone on hand to deliver their babies; it’s a story about enduring, surviving, and not giving up. You can buy it anywhere fine books are sold, and I’ve been doing my best to keep Uncle Hugo’s, Moon Palace, and Dreamhaven in signed copies.