This is definitely the race that people in my circle are the most undecided about. They’re not waffling over whether to go for Ole Savior, just to be clear: it’s basically a Walz vs. Murphy debate. And a lot of people are really undecided:
SUPER WITH YOU THERE, DAVID.
Here’s who’s on the ballot:
Erin Murphy and Erin Maye-Quade
Lori Swanson and Rick Nolan
Tim Walz and Peggy Flanagan
Tim Holden and James P. Mellin II
Olé Savior and Chris Edman
EDITED TO ADD: Looking for an alternative to Keith Ellison in light of the domestic abuse allegations? My recommendation would be Mike Rothman: he seems solid and competent, and the lawyers who’ve worked with him all seem to like him. Debra Hilstrom has close ties to Lori Swanson, which is even less appealing now than it was when I wrote this post last month; Matt Pelikan still has a resume I’d consider thin even for a seat in the legislature; and Tom Foley’s defamation lawsuit against WCCO really ticks me off. Mike Rothman looks fine to me, and I’m probably going to vote for him on Tuesday.
Here’s the post I originally wrote about this race:
This is a statewide race. Thanks in part to our ongoing national nightmare, I think people are more aware now than they were for a while that this is an extremely important job.
I’ve never been a fan of Lori Swanson. She was a Mike Hatch protege, and I really didn’t like Mike Hatch. When I saw Pelikan was challenging Swanson for the endorsement, at my SD convention, I grabbed one of his stickers and slapped it on, although there was no “uncommitted for governor, Pelikan for AG” walking subcaucus to join so I thought this was probably pretty quixotic. At the state convention, Pelikan got enough votes to prevent a first-ballot endorsement of Swanson — it was 52% Swanson, 48% (I assume) Pelikan — at which point Swanson dropped out of the race entirely and announced she was running for governor, instead. The convention endorsed Pelikan, and then a bunch of other people, starting with Keith Ellison, jumped into the AG race.
What a year. Anyway, here’s who’s on the ballot:
Mike Rothman
Debra Hilstrom
Matt Pelikan
Tom Foley
Keith Ellison
All five of these people are qualified, legitimate candidates. All of them are lawyers, all of them have relevant experience, none of them are actually Republicans and none of them are loons. (Sharon Anderson is running in the Republican primary, and don’t count her out, she beat Charlie Weaver in the GOP primary back in 1994 and was the Republican AG candidate on the general election ballot.)
Oh good, an easy one.
Here’s who’s running:
Elena L. Ostby (Incumbent)
Seamus R. Mahoney
Calandra Revering
I see no particular reason to get rid of Ostby. Mahoney’s web page is his attorney web site, with nothing explaining his interest in or qualifications for a judgeship. Calandra Revering apparently had her license to practice law suspended at some point. (You can read a little bit more about her here.)
Anyway, I’m going to vote for Ostby.
There are three people running:
G. Tony Atwal (incumbent)
Elliott Nickell
P. Paul Yang
There’s basically one question in this race, or maybe two.
(Editing to add: turns out there are some additional questions!)
“Court 11” seems to refer to the seat that’s open, but I can’t figure out which judge is in it right now. That person is apparently not running for re-election as the seat seems to be wide open. There are four people running, two of whom will progress to the November ballot.
I just want to note for the record that I think this is a bad way to choose a judge. Even more than any other elective seat, I’m not in a good position to decide whether someone’s going to be good at the job. The Committee on Judicial Selection, which you apply to and which recommends appointments to the governor, and which was handling two seats this year, seems genuinely more qualified to me. (I have no idea why this seat wasn’t filled that way!)
(I’d also prefer retention elections to the system we’ve got now. In a retention election, you vote “should we keep this person, Y/N” when their term expires, and if people vote N, a new person gets appointed.)
The vast majority of what judges do isn’t partisan. “Did this person steal a car?” is not a particularly political question. But of course, politics leak in in all sorts of ways. I don’t want a judge who’s going to discriminate against a gay parent in a child custody case. I don’t want a judge who doesn’t take violence against women seriously. I don’t want a judge who assumes that police officers are always telling the truth. Etc.
Anyway — somewhat frustratingly, I’m going to note — all four of the candidates for this open seat appear to be basically fine and decent people who’d probably be good judges. Here they are:
Scott Michael Flaherty
Adam Yang
Jeffry Martin
Gregory J. Egan IV
This race abruptly got more interesting during the DFL State Convention, when Keith Ellison decided to run for Attorney General, opening up this seat. There was a mad dash to file; a bunch of the filers then withdrew after seeing someone they liked and respected (or didn’t think they could reasonably beat) in the contest. The 5th district DFL reconvened and held an endorsing convention, which I thought was an absolutely terrible idea under the circumstances. Anyway, it’s been an interesting year.
The good news: this is a very, very, very, very blue district. In 2016, Keith Ellison won with 69.1% of the vote (and the “Legal Marijuana Now” person got 8% of what was left.) If this is your district, you can vote your heart in the primary without asking yourself, “but will this person win in the general?” Also, if you want any input on your next congressional rep, you will definitely want to show up on August 14th.
The candidates running:
Frank Nelson Drake
Bobby Joe Champion
Jamal Abdi Abdulahi
Margaret Anderson Kelliher
Patricia Torres Ray
Ilhan Omar
There’s a primary here, but not much of one; I figure I can knock this one out before I go to bed.
On the ballot:
Muad Hassan
Reid Rossell
Betty McCollum
We have two Senate races this year. Amy Klobuchar is running for a regular six-year term. Tina Smith is running to finish out Al Franken’s term. This is the Tina race. Not surprisingly, it’s more hotly contested.
Whoever wins this election will serve for two years, instead of six, and will run for re-election (or, I guess, decide they’re sick of the job) in 2020.
Running in the DFL primary for this Senate seat:
Nick Leonard
Ali Chehem Ali
Richard Painter
Tina Smith
Greg Iverson
Christopher Lovell Seymore Sr.
We have two Senate races this year. Amy Klobuchar is running for a regular six-year term. Tina Smith is running to finish out Al Franken’s term. This is the Amy race, rather than the Tina race.
Running in the DFL primary for this Senate seat:
Steve Carlson
Stephen A. Emery
David Robert Groves
Leonard J. Richards
Amy Klobuchar
The quick, easy tl;dr answer here is to vote for Amy Klobuchar, but that’s not what you people come here for, so read on to find out, among other things, who Leonard J. Richards is.
We have primaries in a month so I should really get started with this.
Here’s how Minnesota primaries work: you get a ballot. One page is the partisan page, and it is divided in half. There is a DFL side, and there is a Republican side. You pick the party you want to vote in and vote in only that party’s races. You cannot vote in the Republican race for Governor and the DFL race for Senator. You definitely cannot vote in both. If you try, your ballot will get rejected as a spoiled ballot and nothing will get counted. (If you’re at a polling place, you can turn in your ballot for a fresh ballot and try again.)
There is also a page of nonpartisan races. You can vote in all of these regardless of whether you voted on the DFL side or the Republican side of the main ballot.
The primary is August 14th and there are a whole lot of primary races this year so I am going to prioritize the DFL side of the ballot, probably to the exclusion of the Republicans. You’ll get my opinion of the Republican primary winners when I blog the general. Spoiler: they all suck.
In Minnesota, you can find your own ballot by plugging your address into the Secretary of State “My Ballot” site, here: https://myballotmn.sos.state.mn.us/
And you can register to vote here: https://mnvotes.sos.state.mn.us/VoterRegistration/VoterRegistrationMain.aspx
Will Tell Stories For Food 