The tl;dr is “vote for the DFLer” but I e-mailed every Republican running in a city district to ask who they think won the Presidential race in 2020 and now I need a post to share the results.

A note — for the incumbents, I pulled up the list of bills where they were the principal author. To find this, pull up the legislator at https://www.house.mn.gov/ and under member links you’ll see one to “Bills Chief Authored.” It shows what they chief authored in the last session. You can also see what they co-authored.

Cut for length!

51A

This is mostly in Richfield but does include a few houses in Minneapolis. On the ballot:

Michael Howard (DFL, incumbent)
Jeffrey Thompson (Republican)

Jeffrey Thompson has no website, which makes it a lot harder to figure out which of the various Jeff Thompsons running around Minnesota he is (probably not the judge whose father was a notorious murderer and I think it’s also unlikely that he’s the former mayor of Paynesville who ran for the 14B House Seat in 2004.) He did not reply to my e-mail.

Michael Howard is from Richfield and has served in the MN House since 2018. He seems fine. (I really don’t know a lot about him.)

59A

Rep. Fue Lee (DFL) is running unopposed.

59B

Esther Agbaje (DFL, incumbent)
Kenneth Smoron (Republican)

Kenneth wants to solve the problem of food insecurity by having city residents grow their own food (gardens are great, but as someone whose parents were very enthusiastic gardeners, who tries to grow tomatoes every year and mostly fails at it, they are so not a solution to food insecurity, holy shit). He loves cops and hates taxes. He did not reply to my e-mail.

Esther Agbaje was first elected in 2020. She has worked on a variety of issues but this past session was the chief author of (among other things) the CROWN act (banning discrimination against Black people with natural hairstyles) and the law shielding women who travel to Minnesota to get abortions.

60A

Sydney Jordan (DFL, incumbent)
Mary Holmberg (Republican)

Sydney Jordan has been in the MN House since winning a special election in 2020. She was the chief author of the universal free school lunch bill.

Mary Holmberg refers to the unrest that followed the murder of George Floyd as “the Democrat riots of 2020” (and does not mention what triggered the protests). She loves mining and vouchers and did not reply when I used her “contact me” form to ask who she thought won the 2020 Presidential Election.

60B

Mohamud Noor (DFL, incumbent)
Abigail Wolters (Republican)

Mohamud was first elected in 2018. In the last session, bills he was the chief author of were heavily human services bills, including one that provided money to raise the pay of nursing home staff.

Abigail describes herself as “a lifelong Minnesotan, a Christian, a software developer…” She moved to Minneapolis in 2017 and I assume it was to attend college, because she graduated from the U of M in 2021. She loves cops and hates taxes. She did not reply to my e-mail asking who she thought won the presidential election in 2020.

61A

This district has a DFLer vs. a Green instead of a DFLer vs. a Republican, making it a more interesting contest worthy of a full post, which you will find here.

61B

Jamie Long (DFL, incumbent)
Bob “Again” Carney Jr. (Republican)

Jamie was first elected in 2018. He does a lot of work on climate issues, including in the most recent session authoring a bill to put Minnesota on the path to fully carbon-free energy by 2040.

BobAgain is a perennial candidate. He doesn’t currently have a website and did not reply to my e-mail about the 2020 election but has been on record in previous elections as someone who was not any sort of Trump fan, so I’m inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt here (though I wouldn’t vote for him).

62A

Aisha Gomez (DFL, incumbent)
Alexandra “ZaZa” Hoffman Novick (Republican)

Aisha was first elected in 2018. Her website highlights driver’s licenses for all, harm reduction, and housing funding as some of her accomplishments.

Alexandra doesn’t have a website. I found her Facebook but it doesn’t seem to really say much about her political beliefs, other than, she has a large heart in the colors of the Palestinian flag tattooed on her face. It’s not clear to me that she actually lives in Minnesota. She posts a lot of very rambling videos where she sounds like she might be intoxicated (but she has a post saying anyone who says she’s drinking should be put on death row, she quit 8 months ago) so maybe the slightly slurred, very rambling speech might just be how she talks. She did not reply to my e-mail, but honestly, that’s the least surprising thing here.

62B

Anquam Mahamoud (DFL)
Bob Sullentrop (Republican)

Current representative Hodan Hassan is not running for re-election. There was no primary because after Anquam Mahamoud was endorsed by the DFL House District Convention, the other hopefuls withdrew. Anquam’s website highlights health care (she’d like something like the Minnesota Health Plan), housing, and education.

Bob is a local Republican who has volunteered for various party roles (“Bob was the Treasurer of Senate Districts 60 Republicans and then Senate District 62 Republicans, from 2008 to 2019 and has been the Chair of SD62 Republicans from 2019 to the present”) and has run for Park Board (2017), City Council (2021), and City Council again (2023). He did not respond to my e-mail asking who he thought won the 2020 Presidential Election.

63A

Rep. Samantha Sencer-Mura is running unopposed.

63B

Emma Greenman (DFL, incumbent)
Diane Napper (Republican)

Emma Greenman was first elected in 2020. Her website and her record show a lot of focus on voting rights.

Diane Napper is married to Shawn Holster, who ran for the MN 63 State Senate seat in 2022 and is a 3%er. Her website is pretty thin but talks about how bad the schools are (I assume she’s pro-voucher but she doesn’t say) and how bad crime is. (One of the patterns I’m seeing on a lot of the Republican websites are people talking about supporting “first responders,” thus lumping in the cops with firefighters and ambulances. I saw this somewhere on Diane’s Facebook.) On her FB she also trash-talks Gen Z with a recycled rant I remember seeing word-for-word about Millennials and also about Gen X back in the day. (Lazy! Coddled with participation trophies! She really does bring up participation trophies, FTR.) Diane did not reply to my e-mail asking who she thought won the Presidential election in 2020.

64A

Kaohly Vang Her (DFL, incumbent)
Dan Walsh (Republican)

Kaohly was first elected in 2018. Her “bills chief authored” list includes a lot of stuff that doesn’t lend itself well to sound bites, like a bill regarding the state pension system. Her website says she’s planning to work for early childhood funding, single-payer health care, and clean energy.

When I wrote to Dan to ask him who he thought won the 2020 presidential race, I also mentioned that the videos on his website (that are basically 100% of the content) were not showing up for me. He has neither replied to me nor fixed his website. I did take a look at his Twitter, where he posts long videos of himself riding a bike through the city and talking about stuff. He has one where he rides past Macalester College and says he really ought to ask them whether they have a chapter of the College Republicans. (The answer, which I got by Googling, seems to be that they had one back in 2017 but don’t anymore.) As far as I can tell from his videos, his political philosophy seems to be, “everything that annoys me or is obviously bad is because of the Democrats.” (The Midway Herberger’s closing, for example.)

64B

Dave Pinto (DFL, incumbent)
Peter Donahue (Republican)

This is my actual district. Dave was first elected in 2014. His major legislative focus is early childhood education and child safety and welfare more generally. As one of his constituents, I’ll also note that he’s responsive to e-mail messages.

I am not going to vote for Peter Donahue but I would like to give him a shout-out here for being an exemplary Republican candidate. He’s door-knocking, or at least dropping lit with notes inviting people to call him for a chat. His website lists a couple of actual issues (like most of his colleagues, he loves cops and hates taxes). Finally, when I e-mailed him to ask who he thought won the 2020 election, he replied within two hours to say, “President Biden won the election; and I desperately hope for sanity in this election.”

Peter Donahue gets a “Republican Who Actually Respects Democracy And Takes A Courageous Stand Saying So” ribbon and any democracy-respecting Republicans living in Minneapolis and St. Paul wondering if there’s anyone worth doorknocking for — I found you a guy! (He still won’t win, but maybe via his campaign you can connect with fellow democracy-respecting Republicans and discuss whether it’s possible to re-take your party from the Royce White wing and rebuild?)

65A

Rep. Samakab Hussein is running unopposed.

65B

María Isa Pérez-Vega (DFL, incumbent)
Mike Hillborn (Republican)

María Isa is finishing her first term in the House. The bills she authored were a little bit of a grab bag but include gun control, diabetic supplies coverage (she is a Type 1 diabetic who was heavily involved in organizing for affordable insulin, prior to getting elected), and funding for shelters, food organizations, and cultural amenities.

Mike Hillborn’s website is a mix of the usual “I love cops and hate taxes” messaging with a side of “super scary dogwhistles,” like “parental rights” (usually code for “the government should not be allowed to prevent you from abusing your children”) and “Together, we can save our Republic” (usually code for “I believe in violent insurrection in response to Democratic victories”).

He gets some credit for responding to my e-mail asking who won the 2020 Presidential election but no credit for his response. (He made it clear that (a) he 100% buys into Trump’s big lie and (b) he wanted to fight with me about it by demanding why Democrats opposed the SAVE act. When I pointed out that the law he and his party wanted to pass would disenfranchise about 30% of married women, and a disproportionately Republican subset at that, he stopped replying.)

(The SAVE act would make it much harder for people who’ve changed their name to register to vote, and basically impossible if they don’t have a passport or REAL ID in their new name. It’s actually a little over 30% of married women who don’t have the necessary documents, because about half of Americans don’t have a passport or REAL ID.)

66A

Leigh Finke (DFL, Incumbent)
Fadil Jama (Republican)

Leigh is finishing her first term, and authored the Trans Refuge law. (I am really proud to live in a state that is committed to protecting people from other states who want to exercise their bodily autonomy — the legislature got a lot of worthwhile stuff done in the last session but those are two things I am particularly proud of.)

Fadil Jama is a puzzle. His website says that health care is a right. His Ballotpedia survey has some Republican stuff (school vouchers, at least I think he’s saying he supports vouchers) but also includes, “I will advocate for criminal justice reform to address overcriminalization, end civil asset forfeiture abuses, and reform anti-drug legislation.” Not really sure why he’s a Republican or supports Republican candidates, honestly? But his Twitter makes him sound like a Trump supporter.

He replied in twenty minutes to my e-mail about the 2020 election and said, “The 2020 presidential election was won by Joe Biden, as certified by Congress and affirmed through the legal processes that followed the election. While people may hold different views on election integrity, it’s important to respect the outcomes of our democratic system and work towards ensuring that future elections are conducted with transparency and trust.” So Fadil gets my “Republican Who Actually Respects Democracy And Takes A Courageous Stand Saying So” ribbon. I’m not sure he’s doorknocking but his website lists an upcoming event so if any democracy-respecting city Republicans are looking for volunteering opportunities, that’s another one. (Again, he still won’t win, but maybe via his campaign you can connect with fellow democracy-respecting Republicans and discuss whether it’s possible to re-take your party from the Royce White wing and rebuild? You’ll need to be OK with a Republican who thinks health care is a right, though.)

A side note for any Democrats who can’t stand Leigh for whatever reason and is tempted here: I would assume Fadil holds some awful opinions he’s just not sharing (he’s running as a Republican, after all) but more importantly, he would caucus with the Republican party, and the DFL margin in the legislature is very narrow.

66B

Athena Hollins (DFL, incumbent)
Greg Copeland (Republican)

Athena was first elected in 2020. Her website and her list of authored bills show a strong interest in criminal justice reform and public safety from a “rethinking when we send cops” standpoint.

Greg Copeland is a long-standing perennial candidate whose website is full of transphobia (he repeatedly misgenders and deadnames Leigh Finke), really weird ableism, and the claim that a conversion therapy ban violates people’s religious freedom. He also calls Trump “the leader of the Free World.” His website provides no contact information for him at all so I did not e-mail him to ask who he thinks won in 2020 but honestly, I don’t think his opinion here is really in doubt.

67A

Liz Lee (DFL, incumbent)
Scott Hesselgrave (Republican)

Liz Lee is finishing her first term in the State House. Her “bills authored” list includes a range of stuff with a theme of “St. Paul” — funds for libraries, park buildings, affordable housing, etc.

Scott Hesselgrave’s campaign Facebook page is basically your racist Trumpy uncle’s Facebook page: videos with titles like “BOOM! California Democrat HUMILIATED by college student!” alternating with transphobic memes. He shares a lot of stuff on Facebook and it’s all like this. He did not respond to my e-mail asking who he thinks won the 2020 presidential election. (Possibly I should have tried messaging him on Facebook.)

67B

Jay Xiong (DFL, incumbent)
Sharon Anderson (Republican)

Jay was first elected in 2018. His website highlights one of the standouts on his list of bills authored: a workforce development bill. (“I am proud to champion legislation for youth  mentorship programs, homework support, career readiness initiatives, college preparedness, and other pathway assistance.”)

Sharon Anderson is a perennial candidate I’ve talked about before. I’m not going to try to track down her current website because (a) she never changes, (b) I’m worried I’ll get a computer virus from it, and (c) she’s been hospitalized since sometime in September.

I think that covers ever city legislative race this cycle. And once again: I would vote for any of these Democrats over any of these Republicans.

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I do not have a Patreon or Ko-Fi but instead encourage people to donate to fundraisers I can then see fund. Usually I do teacher fundraisers (and I found one for this year, Ms. Pierce at Lucy Craft Laney school in North Minneapolis who would like donations to buy books, math manipulatives, and social and emotional learning resources.)

But I’m also fundraising for something slightly more personal to my family this year: YMCA Camp Northern Lights. Camp Northern Lights is a family camp, which is a camp that whole families attend together. My family went to Camp Du Nord (the other YMCA family camp) for many years, and my daughter Kiera has worked as a counselor at Camp Northern Lights for the last two summers. One of the things that makes Camp Northern Lights unique is their serious commitment to inclusion of families from communities that have been underrepresented at YMCA camps.

Last summer, Camp Northern Lights had a serious fire early in the summer — no one was hurt, but they lost their commercial kitchen and the housing for the counselors-in-training. They are hoping to raise enough money to rebuild an expanded kitchen. I have set up a fundraiser towards that goal. If you’d like to express your appreciation for the usefulness of this blog, you can show your love by donating to my fundraiser!