There are fifteen people running for Minneapolis mayor. You only have to worry about four of them, and this post will talk about those four. If you want to know more about all the others, that is in a separate post.

The four candidates who might actually win in November:

Jacob Frey (incumbent)
Omar Fateh
Jazz Hampton
DeWayne Davis

The tl;dr is that my current ranking is (1) DeWayne Davis; (2) Omar Fateh; (3) Jazz Hampton. What I would really strongly encourage people to do if they don’t want Jacob but aren’t sure how they feel about the precise order of the challengers is to pick a favorite as soon as possible and donate and doorknock. Four years ago, I got my post up really late, and I was indecisive, and I think I was probably not the only person who got caught up in analysis paralysis. Analysis paralysis that keeps you from donating and volunteering will get you four more years of Jacob Frey! I am here RIGHT NOW, TODAY with information to help you make a decision (which can totally be different from the one I’m making! Get out there and doorknock for Omar Fateh or Jazz Hampton if one of them is your first choice!) Frey is extremely unpopular; the biggest hill to climb for his opponents is name recognition.

I made an effort this month to meet DeWayne Davis, Omar Fateh, and Jazz Hampton in person. I went to a DeWayne Davis meet-and-greet at a park, an Omar Fateh fundraiser, and a Jazz Hampton meet-and-greet at a playground. I asked each of them if they could identify a problem that they thought they could solve as mayor — Minneapolis is facing plenty of problems, some very complicated and some more straightforward, was there any particular problem that they looked at and thought, “make me mayor, and I could fix this one.” I didn’t try to find Jacob to ask this question because he’s been mayor for eight years; he’s had his chance.

Something I found worthwhile was the Mayoral Candidate Q&A from the city DFL convention. There are some challenging and interesting questions. (You can skip 5 seconds at a time with arrow keys if there are candidates you don’t want to hear from.) One caveat is that the video was taken from over to the side and you can’t always tell who’s talking; you have to be able to recognize the candidate’s voices (which mostly I can, but mileage may vary here.)

Cut because the analysis is going to get long!