Election 2020: Special Primary, State Representative District 60A (analysis)

District 60A, which is mostly Northeast Minneapolis but also includes a little bit of Southeast, is having an election on January 21st. (Not sure if you live in 60A? You can find out here.) To be clear: January 21st is the DFL Primary, and it’s also almost certainly where the next representative for 60A will be decided. There is a general election on February 4th; the only non-DFLer running is Marty Super of Legal Marijuana Now.

Whoever wins will serve in the upcoming legislative session, then (presumably) run for re-election in November of 2020 for a full two-year term.

This is a really rough time of year to be running a special election. People tend to be busy and distracted in December; it’s also likely to be cold/snowy/sleeting/just a terrible time of year to go out and door-knock. There are also eleven candidates.

Here’s who’s running, with links to websites. 

Piyali Nath Dalal
Mohamed Issa Barre
Sydney Jordan
Saciido Shaie
Zachary Wefel
Susan Whitaker
Aaron Neumann
Jessica Intermill
Aswar Rahman
Amal Ibrahim
Sonia Neculescu

Other useful information you can find online:

  • John Edwards of WedgeLive sent out a questionnaire to the candidates, and most responded; you can find all their answers here.
  • The DFL held a candidate forum on January 11th. Everyone attended except for Mohamed Barre. You can view it on Facebook: Part One and Part Two. Part One, you probably want to skip about 20 minutes in to get to the actual forum. There are some sound issues early on but they got straightened out pretty quickly.
  • Another forum was held on January 13th. It’s also on Facebook; you can watch it here. All eleven candidates participated.
  • The local DFL also requested that the candidates all fill out a questionnaire with some detailed questions about their beliefs and policy ideas. Everyone other than Mohamed Barre completed the questionnaire, and you can find their answers on the Senate District 60 DFL site.

My analysis (but first, an analysis of how I’m analyzing people) below the cut.

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Election 2020: Special Election, State Representative District 60A

You were probably not expecting to see an elections post from me at least until February, but as it happens, State House District 60A is having a special election due to the death of Rep. Diane Loeffler. The Special Primary election will be held on January 21st — and, just to be clear, that’s where the action is. Twelve people have filed to run for this seat. Eleven of them are DFLers. The remaining person running is from the Legal Marijuana Now party. The primary will be intense and competitive. I think it is quite likely that unless something very strange happens, whichever DFLer wins the primary will coast to victory in the general on February 4th. 

I’m going to do a full writeup of the primary candidates later this month, but for now, having tracked down everyone’s website, I wanted to provide the list of candidates and where to find them online.

Here’s who’s running, with links to websites. If you have information on a website that I missed, please drop me a comment with the URL and I will edit.

Piyali Nath Dalal
Mohamed Issa Barre
Sydney Jordan
Saciido Shaie
Zachary Wefel
Susan Whitaker
Aaron Neumann
Jessica Intermill
Aswar Rahman
Amal Ibrahim
Sonia Neculescu

Also, Marty Super of the Legal Marijuana Now party will be on the ballot facing whichever DFLer wins the primary. I have not found a website for him yet.

This is a state legislative election, and not a city election, so it will not be done instant-runoff style. You will get to pick one, and whoever gets the most votes wins.

Edited 1/12 to add: a candidate forum was held and everyone other than Mohamed Barre attended. You can view it on Facebook:

Part One
Part Two

Part One, you probably want to skip about 20 minutes in to get to the actual forum. There are some sound issues early on but they got straightened out pretty quickly.

The local DFL also requested that the candidates all fill out a questionnaire with some detailed questions about their beliefs and policy ideas. Everyone other than Mohamed Barre completed the questionnaire, and you can find their answers on the Senate District 60 DFL site.

(Am I going to write about the Democratic presidential primary? Of course. But I’m waiting until after New Hampshire votes to write about it. Our primary — we have a primary this year! — will be held on Super Tuesday, March 3rd.)

By the way, my new book is NOW OUT.  Catfishing on CatNet, which is a near-future young adult thriller, got stars from both Publisher’s Weekly and Kirkus Reviews. It is widely available at various local independent bookstores, and Uncle Hugo’s will let you order a signed copy. If you’re looking at this on December 12th, 13th, or 14th, you might find it useful to know that I’ll be doing an event (reading and then signing) at Dreamhaven Books, 2301 E. 38th St. Minneapolis, MN 55407, on Saturday, December 14th, 2-3 p.m. (If you’re seeing this after the 14th, you can probably also order a signed copy from Dreamhaven.)