Tag Archives: Katie Jones

Election 2026: All the State Legislative Races in Minneapolis and Saint Paul

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The tl;dr here: just vote for the DFLer in all of these. My least-favorite Democrats are all still better than Republicans.

State Senate District 59

Bobby Joe Champion is running unopposed.

State Senate District 60

Senator Doron Clark (originally elected in the special election in 2025, after Senator Kari Dziedzic died of cancer) is running for re-election. Back during the Special Primary, people described him over and over as the kind of guy who shows up, and he’s continued showing up since getting elected. Republican Abigail Wolters is running against him again. I e-mailed her when she ran in 2022 asking who she thought won the 2020 election; she did not reply. She wants school vouchers, she wants to “eliminate unfunded mandates” which generally means special ed, and she scaremongers about crime. Vote for Doron Clark.

State Senate District 61

Scott Dibble is running unopposed.

State Senate District 62

Omar Fateh had an opponent in the primary but is unopposed in the general.

State Senate District 63

Zaynab Mohammed was elected in 2022. Her website has a lot of focus on affordable housing. Diane Napper ran for House in 2024. She is married to Trumpy weirdo Shawn Holster, who ran for this senate seat in 2022. Her website talks about how bad the schools are (I assume she’s pro-voucher but she doesn’t say), how bad crime is, and how bad taxes are. I e-mailed her in 2024 to ask who she thought won the 2020 Presidential election and she did not reply. Vote for Zaynab Mohammed.

State Senate District 64

Erin Murphy is my State Senator and is terrific. She’s probably best known for her work on health care for all. Robert Bushard is an elderly crank who ran for Ward 4 City Council in 2023 and bragged about personally clearing a homeless encampment; referred to the murder of George Floyd as “the death of a career criminal;” scaremongered about LGBTQ+ people; suggested banning bail funds; and flirted with election denial. His current website calls Tim Walz “Governor Runaway Tampon Timmy Awolz.” Vote for Erin Murphy.

State Senate District 65

Senator Sandy Pappas is not running again, so this is an open seat. The DFLer running is Robyn Gully, a West St. Paul City Council Rep who has spent years working in labor organizing. She sounds great. The woman she beat in the primary, who failed to respond to my question about her stances on abortion and LGBTQ+ rights, Natasha Bennett, is running a write-in campaign. There is also a Republican in the race, Chris Rocco, who apparently is on the ballot as “_Rocco” (the underscore is included on the ballot). His absolute jaw-dropping awfulness is summed up pretty neatly by the fact that he’s the guy woxesho proposed the “moment of silence” for convicted murderer Derek Chauvin at the GOP State Convention (the motion passed and they did, in fact, hold a moment of silence for a murderer; bear that mind the next time Republicans yap about being tough on crime.) He’s also been putting campaign stickers on people’s mailboxes (which is illegal) and in the discussion thread about that, someone alleged that he sexually assaulted them. None of the Republicans running are good; Rocco is a dumpster fire in a toxic waste dump, and the more you look the worse he gets. Vote for Robyn Gully.

State Senate District 66

Clare Oumou Verbeten is the DFLer who is just finishing her first term. Her website calls out “fighting fascism” as her top issue. Her Republican opponent, Kathleen Bart, is running on hating trans girls specifically, massively reducing family and medical leave, and getting rid of universal free lunches (“Why are taxpayers paying for wealthy children’s meals?” Well, for one thing, because there are no wealthy children. There are children with wealthy parents, and some wealthy parents are jerks. We can collect from the wealthy parents by raising taxes on them!) Vote for Clare.

State Senate District 67

Foung Hawj has been in the State Senate since 2013. His website highlights the rental assistance passed in the legislature to help people struggling during and after Metro Surge. His Republican opponent, Toby Hesselgrave, has no website and has responded to no questionnaires but I did find his Facebook. It’s a mix of right-wing AI slop, transphobia, racism, classic cars (apparently he does classic car restoration — whether as a business or a hobby, I’m not sure) and insisting that Katie Zacharia is a lawyer even though she never passed the bar. Vote for Foung Hawj.

State House District 59A

Fue Lee is unopposed.

State House District 59B

Esther Agbaje was elected in 2019. Her website highlights first-time buyer help and tenant protections (especially during the pandemic) as well as authoring the CROWN Act, barring hairstyle-based discrimination against Black people in schools and workplaces. (I think it actually bans hairstyle-based discrimination against anyone, but this comes up a lot more for Black people.) Her Republican opponent is Kenneth Smoron, a Log Cabin Republican (which is to say, he’s gay but apparently hates taxes more than he likes having rights.) Vote for Esther Agbaje.

State House District 60A

The incumbent is Sydney Jordan, who originally won in a special election in early 2020. Her website highlights a focus on education, from preschool through college. Her Republican opponent John Holmberg has what looks to me like an AI-generated image of Northeast on the front page of his website. He offers almost zero biographical information (he and his wife Mary have lived in Northeast for 30 years. That’s it: nothing about what he does for a living, what his civic involvement has been, etc.) and I found no social media. He highlights school vouchers and longer sentences for criminals as his main issues. I e-mailed to ask him for an example of an unfunded mandate that “eats up school budgets” and he did not reply. Vote for Sydney Jordan.

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

Anquam Mahamoud is just finishing her first term in the State Legislature. Her website highlights her commitment to health care and bodily autonomy. Bob Sullentrop is a perennial candidate who has run for Park Board (2017) (on a “prioritize the golf courses” platform), Ward 8 City Council (2021), Ward 8 City Council again (2023) (those runs were on a “I hate bike lanes and also any steps towards pedestrian safety that inconvenience me in my car” platform — seriously, he complained about speed limits), Minnesota House 62B (2024), and Ward 8 City Council again (2025) on an “I hate the DSA” platform. Vote for Anquam Mahamoud.

State House District 63A

Samantha Sencer-Mura has been in the legislature since 2023. She’s an educator, writer, and activist, and she highlights education and climate justice on her website. Kyle Bragg is running against her. Kyle Bragg has run repeatedly but this is the first time he’s ever had a website. It doesn’t help much. (He says he wants safer streets, better schools, and more government integrity, but with zero detail on what he means or what he’d do.) Vote for Samantha.

State House District 63B

Emma Greenman was first elected in 2020. Her website highlights legislation she passed banning junk fees, strengthening Minnesota Care, and defending voting rights. Her opponent, Nick Peters, has a website that highlights the old flag and says he’s trying to raise enough money by July 20th to qualify for a public subsidy. Vote for Emma.

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

Leigh Finke was first elected in 2022. She’s a trans woman who highlights civil rights and racial justice on her website. Her Republican opponent, Mark Born, added a sign to his signs saying “Normal Guy, Normal Name,” which several DFL State Senators have noted is both a transphobic statement and either a xenophobic or antisemitic swipe at Leigh’s last name. He highlights his hostility toward trans girls on his website. Vote for Leigh Finke.

State House District 66B

Athena Hollins was first elected in 2020. Her website highlights public safety, affordable housing, and climate justice. (Note: her public safety section talks about re-thinking how we respond to problems that don’t actually require armed intervention, and responding vigorously to police misconduct.) Her opponent, Mary O’Neal, says on her website, “Together, I am focused on issues that matter to Minnesotans: Voter ID, School choice, Restoring the original state flag.” Mary also filed a groundless complaint against the DFL after the 2024 election because when she went to early vote at the Plato building, she saw someone with a Kamala Harris sign tucked under one arm standing in the parking lot having a conversation. You are required to keep campaign materials 100 feet from the polling place; this was well over 100 feet and this woman was not holding the sign up or campaigning. Vote for Athena Hollins.

State House District 67A

Liz Lee was first elected in 2022. Her website highlights education, child care, and infrastructure issues, including transit. Her Republican opponent Jennifer McPherson offers a grab bag of random grievances but honestly doesn’t sound like she’d be especially comfortable at a Republican convention. Her current campaign Facebook page includes reshares of Republican complaints about taxes and fraud but also an Angela Davis quote about being anti-racist, a Malcolm X quote about being fooled into hating your fellow oppressed people, and objections to data centers. That’s all within the last day.

Jennifer has also run for school board twice, in 2019 and 2021. Her school board race Facebook is also still up and if you scroll down a bit you’ll find a whole lot of pro-remote-learning posts from early 2022 (see also here and here). (Schools had mostly gone back to in-person in the fall of 2021, but late 2021 / early 2022 was when Omicron wave hit.) There’s also a “lock him up” post that’s clearly referring to Trump, and a re-share from Gender Inclusive Schools. Her current website talks about trans kids and sports and I’m just going to quote verbatim because I am honestly not sure what she’s saying here: “Sports for all genders. MN has to be the leader and allow all children to play sports while following federal laws creating transgender sports teams we are ensuring equality for all while taking the target off children so they can be children and showcase their talents.” She also posted about this issue on her current campaign Facebook: “I will fight for ALL CHILDREN TO FREELY PLAY SPORTS IN MN!! TRUMP WILL NOT TAKEAWAY FREEDOM FROM OUR MN CHILDREN.” She also in that post describes herself as an Independent, despite running as a Republican.

Anyway, I’ll note that the area Republicans seem to be largely ignoring Jennifer. Vote for Liz Lee!

State House District 67B

Jay Xiong is unopposed.

And with that, I think I’m done with this year’s election blogging? (Unless I forgot something. I have been known to miss a race.)

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 2024: MN House 61A

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I am writing about this House race in detail and will be giving minimal attention to the rest because in this race, it’s a DFLer vs. a Green instead of a DFLer vs. a Republican. (DFLer vs. Republican: just vote for the DFLer.) The two candidates:

Katie Jones (DFL)
Toya Lopez (Green)

The good news is that both of these candidates are pretty great. Also, there are two of them. So if you have a preference and came here wondering if I would validate your preference, it kind of doesn’t matter. I think they’re both fine (neither candidate has some horrifying skeleton in the closet that I turned up while researching) and you run absolutely no risk of accidentally getting a Republican if you vote your preference, as there is no Republican in this race. (Even if there were, I would not be worried. There’s a reason you don’t have a Republican in this race, which is, the local Republicans are aware they’d be wasting their time.) If you prefer Katie, vote Katie. If you prefer Toya, vote Toya. That’s my general advice. I usually do tell you who I would vote for, in part just because that’s how I started out doing this blog (twenty years ago) and in part because I feel like that offers useful context because (for example) the way I look at someone’s experience is often affected by the way I feel about their opinions.

In mulling over the differences between Katie and Toya, I watched the forum, I read the Five Questions series from Southwest Journal with Toya and with Katie, and I read the MPR guide questionnaire. I read both their websites and I looked up their resumes on LinkedIn. After I started this post, Toya’s interview with WedgeLive ran and I listened to that (as a podcast — I’m linking to a YouTube video but I just listened, I didn’t watch.)

Katie has an Engineering degree and works for the Center for Energy and Environment. She’s worked on energy policy as part of her job and has also been on stuff like the Sustainable Transportation Advisory Committee at MNDOT and the Capital Long Range Improvement Committee. She likes to raise the point that there are a lot of lawyers in the legislature and not a lot of engineers. Toya has a degree in Public Health and most recently worked for Cooperative Energy Futures. She was on Minneapolis’s Community Environmental Advisory Committee and on the board of MN 350. I’m not sure if she’s pointed out that there are a lot of lawyers in the legislature and not a lot of people who’ve worked in public health, but she could.

I found the forum interesting to watch (if you’d prefer excerpts, this WedgeLive Twitter thread does a highlights reel.) Things that particularly struck me: Toya quoted a line you sometimes hear from left-NIMBYs, “we don’t have a housing crisis, we have an affordable housing crisis.” (We have both. The affordable housing crisis is inextricably linked to a shortage of units, and rent control — she mentioned legalizing rent control being the thing she most wanted to do at the legislature — without also a massive increase in supply will just lead to a massive housing crunch.) Katie gave a vehement YIMBY “we need to build more units” answer but she did not sound like a fan of rent control. Asked what they’d tax and what they’d give up (to afford stuff on their agenda), Toya said she’d tax mansions and give up things like massive loans to Lockheed Martin; Katie said she’d tax pollution and give up being the state with the 4th highest number of lane miles. On transit, Toya brought up sidewalk accessibility (“how do people get to bus stops?”) and Katie talked about hearing people in the district talk about feeling unsafe on light rail (she thinks the Ambassador program is helping.)

On a question about schools, Toya brought up ESL accessibility and how many of her neighbors were pulling their kids out of the district because their kids were not getting the ESL services they needed. Katie wanted to pause the opening of new charter schools until the state could come up with ways to ensure accountability (she referenced the Star Tribune investigation on some of the charter school disaster stories.)

They both have done meaningful work on climate in the past and would bring a lot of concern about climate to the legislature. When they talk, Katie tends to emphasize her background being “a family of small business owners” before swinging into stuff like “we should build fewer roads and less parking.” Toya sounds more like a leftist. (“Everything is built on the bones of oppression and extraction. I recognize this, and decide to wield the privilege I have for justice, to the best of my ability.” — that’s from the MPR voter guide.) The thing that strikes me about this is that the “family of business owners” framing is how she sells climate-friendly policies to people who might actually like to have the third highest miles of paved road lanes. I appreciate this, but I do recognize that there are people who visit my blog who’d prefer the leftist framing over the build-a-coalition-with-the-centrists framing.

One of the issues that Toya raised on the WedgeLive podcast that differentiates her from Katie is that Toya supports divestment from Israel. This is in the category of things that really should not be a local issue, but as it happens, back in 2017, the legislature passed an anti-BDS bill saying that the State of Minnesota could not use any vendors that “discriminate against” the State of Israel. This is total bullshit; this is not something that the State of Minnesota should be requiring of vendors. Toya wants to undo this bill. Katie has not commented on it, so far as I could find.

Toya pointed at the Biden administration policies on Israel as a reason she decided to run as a Green Party candidate. I’m fine with that decision. A third-party candidate in a solid blue district would not tilt it red even if there were a Republican in the race.

But she also said on the WedgeLive podcast that she was probably going to vote for Jill Stein, and here we hit one of my personal dealbreakers. Jill Stein is a blatant grifter who has palled around with Putin and is openly trying to get Trump elected. She has said that she sees no lesser evil between Trump and Harris. Trump had to be dissuaded from using nuclear weapons during his presidency, just to mention one of the many reasons why he’s the “greater evil” in any context. If your memory of the Trump years is so poor that you’re OK with him winning again: no, you absolutely do not get my vote. Nope. You can vote however you want! But so can other people.

Especially since Katie is a terrific candidate and I think she’d also get a lot more done than Toya. (Here’s what I wrote about the DFL primary, which includes other stuff about Katie I didn’t recap here.)

I would vote for Katie Jones.

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!

Primary Elections 2024: MN House 61A

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Every MN House district is up for vote this year in November, but most of them don’t have a primary happening right now. There’s exactly one contested DFL primary for a House seat in Minneapolis or Saint Paul, and it’s this one, 61A.

“How do I know if I’m in 61A?” I hear you ask. Go look up your ballot or your polling place to find out for sure. Or squint at this map:

A map of Legislative District like 61A that I find kind of difficult to read. You can see that it includes Lake of the Isles but ends north of Bde Mka Ska.

There are three candidates running to be the DFL candidate in November, and — important note — this is not an instant-runoff ballot because those aren’t a thing in state races, only city ones. Whoever gets the most votes wins.

The candidates:

Will Stancil
Katie Jones
Isabel Rolfes

There will be no Republican on the ballot for this seat in November, but there will be a Green party candidate, Toya López, so I will write about the race again after the primary. (When I wrote about the upcoming primaries back in June, she was not going to be on the ballot, but she appealed and got on.)

tl;dr I like both Katie and Isabel, but I would vote for Katie because I think she’s got a better shot at beating Will.

Will Stancil

Like a lot of very (or even moderately) online people, I know Will first as a very annoying person on Twitter. He decided at some point (two years ago? I’m not sure) to see whether being very very loud and persistent in defense of Biden’s economic successes could change the narrative. Will has accomplished something real here, which is that he’s managed to become one of those people who is so annoying on social media that I will want to argue against points I actually agree with.

I really dislike some of his favorite tactics, including endless endless quote-tweeting of utterly reprehensible stuff in order to dunk on it.

A Will Stancil quote-tweet. Will says "Interesting, tell us what you mean by that" while quote-tweeting someone named @HankShedwrecker saying "There is no magic amount of money that's going to make the young scholars at Malcolm X Baltimore Achievers Academy read at grade level, Billiam."

It’s not actually an own, in 2024, to quote something blatantly racist and suggest that the person should just own up to their blatant racism. At least, it’s not a particularly effective own, especially on Twitter.

Will has also used a lot of over-the-top violent rhetoric that’s common on Twitter and not particularly acceptable in most other contexts, like “someone should hold you underwater for five to ten minutes,” “go guzzle bleach,” and “you really are deranged. you really should consider the bleach option,” all of these to people who are operating on the same side of the political spectrum as Will and not one of the Nazis. (You can see a collection of these as screen shots here if you’re on Bluesky and here whether or not you’re signed in on Bluesky.)

Will’s habit of picking fights with Nazis on Twitter rebounded partly on Will and partly on his opponents, Katie Jones and Isabel Rolfes. When Will declared his candidacy, some of the Nazis got a website up faster than Will did (it showed up if you searched for a website, and was just plausible enough that a lot of people thought it was real) and mobbed Katie’s Twitter with almost indescribable levels of vileness. (They framed this as “support” for Will.) Isabel did not get the Twitter backlash but got violent and specific threats that were so disturbing that her campaign hired security to protect Isabel’s safety. (This is not normally something people need in a legislative primary race in Minneapolis.)

At the candidate forum earlier this month, social media got brought up, along with how people would communicate with constituents. Will said he loved doorknocking and he was going to keep doorknocking and completely ignored the part of the question about social media. Katie Jones said, “What we say on social media has consequences and we have to take that responsibility seriously,” Isabel Rolfes cosigned this, and Will just … ignored the question. He has said (on Twitter) that if he gets elected he will have less time for Twitter, but he’s currently campaigning (and has legitimately knocked a ton of doors!) and somehow continues to find time for Twitter.

Some other notes on Will: he was endorsed early by Lisa Goodman (who I can’t stand) and the Senior DFL Caucus (still the most conservative politically viable group in Minneapolis), and his endorsements list is just a remarkable collection of elderly white people. Lisa Goodman retired last year, but his other political endorsements are people who retired in 2003, 1978, 1993, 1997, 1982, and 2000. Oh, plus (Republican donor!) Tom Hoch.

If Will had never used Twitter, I would look at his endorsements and still say that 61A should choose someone else. But I dislike his use of Twitter so much that I’m not sure a better set of endorsements would help him win me over. There are two good candidates in this race and I want one of them to win.

So: Katie or Isabel?

They both have their strengths and their weaknesses, and — crucially — this is not a race that has instant runoff. You don’t get a backup choice. And what I’ve been worrying about since the convention adjourned with no endorsement is that Katie and Isabel will split the progressive vote, Will will take the centrists, and he’ll win. So while I’m going to talk about the things that make Katie and Isabel distinctive, in the end, my focus is on who I think has a better shot at beating Will.

Katie Jones

Katie Jones previously ran for the Ward 10 City Council seat (and lost to Aisha Chughtai — who has now endorsed her for the legislative seat). John Edwards (WedgeLive) described her as “intellectually relentless, methodical, focused, and exactly the person I trust to attack a complicated problem.” She’s an engineer, and takes an engineer’s approach to policy writing and problem solving.

Her endorsements include Faith in Minnesota (the endorsements arm of ISAIAH). I’ll note that last year, when my City Council seat in St. Paul was open, I had two candidates running with a shot at winning, Saura Jost and Isaac Russell. Pre-DFL convention, they presented themselves as similarly progressive and I went to the convention planning to support Isaac. Faith in Minnesota endorsed Saura, giving her a first-ballot victory at the convention. Isaac did not drop out, and spent the rest of the campaign aligning himself with the most centrist-y centrists around. I went from being an Isaac supporter to a Saura doorknocker, and this left me with a lot of confidence in Faith in Minnesota’s ability to ferret out secret centrists.

Which is good, because her endorsements also include RT Rybak (ugh) and Ember Reichgott Junge (UGH) (addendum: Katie’s campaign wanted to let me know that Katie did not seek out Ember’s endorsement, this was just an e-mail from Ember to her neighbors about who she was planning to vote for). But she’s also endorsed by Keith Ellison; Aisha Chughtai and Katie Cashman from the City Council; Tom Olson and Becky Alper from the Park Board; and Irene Fernando and Marion Greene from the Hennepin County Board.

I watched the League of Women Voters’ Candidate Forum and noted down a couple of points that spoke well for Katie: in response to a question about fraud and waste, she said that we needed to bring it to light even when things go wrong within our own party. (She’s right. I know how much it sucks when it feels like we’re handing the Republicans one more stick to beat us with, but the alternative is Chicago.) She talked up multigenerational housing as a priority, and in a discussion of street safety, brought up the complete bullshit that is Metro Mobility. (I mean, it’s not bullshit that we have a system for providing rides to the disabled; it’s bullshit that you have to have a two-hour window for pickup and dropoff.)

I mentioned her comments about “responsibility” on social media but I also appreciated her observation (in the context of communication with constituents) that most people actually do not want to hear from their elected officials every day. When we have something to say to them, a problem we want them to solve or a policy we want them to change, we want to be able to reach them and feel heard and get a response (ideally, a solution! but if not, at least some sympathy) and the rest of the time we kind of want them to do their thing and not bug us.

Isabel Rolfes

Isabel has been a legislative assistant since 2022 and has a ton of support from the legislators she’s worked with — she’s endorsed by 19 House Reps and 2 State Senators. And they exemplify something I’ve noticed, which is that people who work with Isabel tend to speak very highly of her. Someone from Minneapolis Twitter commented, “I love Isabel and support her completely. She went out of her way to help me get a hearing for a bill I was working on because she believed in it. She also knows how to campaign in swing districts, something your legislators from safe districts do every 2 years. Seriously, I’ve seen how she activates and works like hell for things she believes in. That bill is a law now and without her quick advocacy it would have died in committee. Now ableism and disability justice training taught by a disabled trainer is a part of teacher licensure.”

Some moments in the forum that I wrote down from Isabel: when asked about streets, she immediately talked about pedestrian safety and about cleaning up after storms. Also, when Education came up, she brought up the legislature taking steps to fix our completely inadequate mandates around sex ed. On housing, she talked about wanting to pass tax credits for converting office space into apartments.

(If you’re interested in seeing a curated set of highlights from the forum instead of watching the whole thing, WedgeLive put one together here: https://wedgelive.com/mn-house-district-61a-candidates-answer-questions-on-the-issues/ )

For me, it really comes down to who’s more likely to beat Will, and after checking and having friends check for yard signs (Katie was outdoing Isabel, but there just weren’t enough overall to make it remotely conclusive) and looking at their lists of campaign events (also inconclusive) I decided to hold off until campaign finance information rolled in this week. You can see a summary of it in this spreadsheet created by Josh Martin. Will has raised the most ($93,165) — given that he does have a substantial Twitter fanbase from outside the state, I don’t find that surprising (exasperating, but not surprising). Katie Jones raised $70,254, and Isabel Rolfes raised $42,109.

Money is an awkward proxy for campaign strength, but that doesn’t make it inaccurate and at this point, it’s the best I’ve got. (I’ll note that “Katie has a better shot at beating Will” is also something I’ve heard from several friends who live in the district and have a clearer sense of the politics there than I do.)

I really like both Isabel and Katie, but I would vote for Katie Jones.

I do not have a Patreon or Ko-Fi, but I get a lot of satisfaction by pointing people at fundraiser that I can then see fund. I may mix things up later but for now, if you’d like to make a donation to encourage my work, please send some money to this young adult raising money for top surgery. (Ly is someone I know personally; they were a good friend of my kids when they were younger, and they were possibly the very first person I ever knew who used they/them pronouns. They grew up into an activist and work for TIGERRS, a support organization for trans and intersex young people.)

Some Sort of Caucus/Convention Guide for 61A and 62B

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A NOTE REGARDING THIS WHOLE POST: I am going to do a Real Post about both the 61A primary and the 62B primary, but not until the filing deadline (June 4th). In the meantime, be aware that this information may be totally out of date — I put this together mainly to motivate people in 61A and 62B to become delegates to their Senate District convention, since DFL endorsement can play such a huge role in getting people elected.

I’m not going to worry about personally endorsing anyone or assembling a lot of in-depth information until we actually get into primary season (lots of people drop out after conventions, especially if there’s an endorsement, and other people get in late) but given the really short turnaround here I’m going to provide some basic info on the people running. I will try to update this page as I learn stuff / as people get in.

Caucuses are happening on Tuesday, February 27th. (The Presidential Primary, which thank goodness is no longer part of the caucus process, happens on March 5th, Super Tuesday.) If you would like to participate in the Senate District Convention to endorse a candidate, go to your caucus or submit a non-attendee form and ask to become a delegate (or alternate). I think all the Senate District Conventions are happening in person this year. For more information on how all this works, here’s a set of video guides.

The caucus/convention process determines who gets the DFL Endorsement. There is still a primary in the fall (and it may be contested, even if everyone on this page abides by endorsement). DFL Endorsement is a big boost, though — it comes with money and volunteer support and mailings and quite a few voters rely heavily on the DFL Endorsement to determine who to vote for.

If you’re wondering about other reps who might be retiring, there’s a list here. And here is a huge, comprehensive list of races and candidates!

Important note for the 61A and 62B people: you do not need to decide, before you go to the caucus, which candidate you’ll support. Just go (or send the form) and pick your favorite candidate at your leisure over the next month.

Also! If you go to your Senate District convention in Minneapolis, stick around to vote for delegates to the US House District 5 convention, in support of Ilhan Omar, not Don Samuels. (Or Tim Peterson.)

Minnesota House 62B

The current rep is Hodan Hassan; she’s announced she’s not running again. Currently hoping to replace her:

Londel French

Londel French is a former Park Board commissioner. I’ve written about him in the past, when he first ran and after he’d served a term. Endorsed by Keith Ellison, Angela Conley, and some other high-profile people. [ETA 2/26]: Also Stonewall DFL, Sheigh Freeberg, State Rep Cedric Frazier, Samantha Pree-Stinson, and FYI if you want the full list for these, scrolling Twitter feeds is probably your best bet. (Editing 2/29 to add Nelson Inz and Robin Wonsley.)

Ira Jourdain

Ira Jourdain is a Minneapolis School Board member who is not running for re-election. I missed his contested election in 2016 and didn’t write about him; when he ran for re-election he was unopposed. No endorsements yet (that I found); he did get an anti-endorsement from Ashley Fairbanks over on Bluesky. [3/18] Ira was endorsed by the DFL Senior Caucus.

Bill Emory

Bill Emory is a Policy Aid and Director of Constituent Services at Hennepin County. He is endorsed by Amy Brendemoen (St. Paul City Council person) and Becky Alper (Park Board commissioner). [ETA 2/26] Also endorsed by Robin Garwood (long-time aid to former City Council rep Cam Gordon), former School Board member Kimberly Caprini,

Again, a reminder: you do not need to decide right now which of these people you support (and more people may get into the race). If you are a delegate to the convention, you should have the opportunity to talk to all of them and ask them about the issues you are most concerned about.

AK Hassan (added 2/24)

Announcement is here; there’s a website linked on his Facebook page, but it doesn’t seem to lead to anything helpful. AK Hassan spent a term on the Park Board; here’s what I wrote about him when he ran for re-election in 2021. (The summary is, he was not good at the job.) (update: he’s now suspended his campaign.)

Anquam Mahamoud (added 2/24)

Announcement is here. Describes herself as “a Black Muslim woman, a healthcare policy expert, and a leader in substance treatment and mental health clinics.” I’m guessing this is her LinkedIn. She has endorsements from AK Hassan and (current, retiring Rep) Hodan Hassan.

Minnesota House 61A

Update on this race: the DFL House District Convention was held on 3/23, and adjourned without an endorsement. Some of these people will probably drop out. You can read Josh Martins’ Twitter thread about the convention here and watch videos of the candidate speeches and Q&A taken by WedgeLive here.

The current rep is Frank Hornstein; he’s announced he’s not running for re-election. Currently hoping to replace him:

Katie Jones

Katie Jones ran previously for the Ward 10 City Council seat (when Lisa Bender retired), losing to Aisha Chughtai; here’s what I wrote about her at the time. She works at an energy-related nonprofit and has been talking about “fifteen-minute cities” since before the right wing was scaremongering about them. She is endorsed by former Park Board commissioner Chris Meyer. She did an interview with Southwest Voices. She is the Ward 10 rep on the Capital Long Range Improvement Committee (CLIC) and several people spoke highly of her work there.

Isabel Rolfes

Isabel Rolfes is a Legislative Assistant in the Minnesota House, and has worked as state legislative staff in various capacities, and as a campaign manager. I couldn’t find any endorsements yet but I think she’s likely to have some soon. (I couldn’t find a ton of information about her generally beyond her website and her LinkedIn — she locked down her personal social media, reasonably, but it means there’s just not a ton out there that I could find.) [ETA 2/25] She is endorsed by Brad Tabke, the DFL State House Rep from 54A, which is Shakopee, and by Rep. Kaela Berg of 55B. She did an interview with Southwest Voices.

Dylan McMahon

Dylan McMahon is a Finance Manager for UnitedHealth. He served on the City of Minneapolis Long-Range Improvements Committee and as his Senate District chair. His older Tweets are heavily about urbanist issues (more housing, less street space reserved for cars). When someone questioned the stuff he’s clicked “Like” on in the past, he took his account private for a bit, nuked absolutely all his likes, then re-opened his account. (I would probably do something similar, tbh, I am a profligate liker of things on Twitter, including some that are entirely by accident, it’s easy to do on a phone.) If he has any endorsements, I wasn’t able to find them.

[ETA 2/25] Some other notes on Dylan: according to multiple reports, he does not live in the district. (He lives in 61B, and is reportedly planning to move if he gets endorsed.) More problematically, as the former Senate District Chair, he planned the convention that’s going to endorse a candidate. Briana Rose Lee (Minneapolis DFL Chair) has questioned the ethics of this on Twitter. Multiple times. Dan Thomas (@DanTheRulesNerd on Twitter) chimed in to say that it’s explicitly against the rules, and tweeted a screenshot of the applicable bit.

The applicable bit reads as follows. (It’s in the DFL Constitution and Bylaws, which you can find here. Article III, Section 7, Subsection C: “Bylaw. Party officials, with the exception of the State DFL Chair and Vice Chairs, are allowed to run for public elected office as long as the party official has no direct involvement in the planning or execution of the relevant endorsing convention, except in the advisory role given any candidate. Under no
circumstance could a party official who has direct responsibility for an endorsing convention run for the office in which that convention is endorsing.” If he had direct involvement in the planning, it seems pretty clear to me that he cannot run for endorsement this cycle.

The other thing that’s pretty clear is that a lot of Dylan’s support is coming from the Senior Caucus / Operation Safety Now wing of the local DFL. Although rumor has it that Scott Graham is just about to get in.

Dylan did an interview with Southwest Voices. Over on his website, under “Why Now,” he says, “When Frank called me, my first thought wasn’t about myself. It was about how a transportation and environmental justice champion has made his imprint on the State of Minnesota. It was about how the Minnesota House would be losing a Jewish legislator right as we’re seeing a rise in antisemitism.” The “we’re losing a Jewish legislator” framing made me wonder if he was Jewish. His interview clarifies that he’s Catholic (or at least, he grew up in a Catholic family.)

On March 16th, the Minneapolis DFL Senior Caucus endorsed Dylan. (Note for those who don’t know this: the DFL Senior Caucus is currently one of the most conservative DFL groups — heavily in favor of parking minimums, more cops, etc.)

Scott Graham [added 2/25 based on rumors]

Scott Graham ran for the Ward 7 City Council seat in 2021 and I did not like him; you can read all the reasons why. (He did not try for endorsement.)

Jared Brewington [added 3/18 because he just hopped into the race]

(This is why I normally don’t write blog posts until primary season and just let other people worry about endorsement season: there’s an actual filing deadline, which makes it clear exactly who’s going to be on the ballot.)

Jared Brewington is a restaurateur who runs (ran? I think it might have closed) a fried chicken restaurant called Official Fried Chicken. The vibe of his website is “look what a great buddy of Jacob Frey I am,” which makes his timing here kind of startling (he seems like he’d have been the pick of the DFL Senior Caucus if he’d gotten in earlier!)

Trevor Turner

Trevor Turner jumped into the race on the morning of the convention. There is a screenshot of his e-mail here. Pretty sure this is his Twitter. I’m doing no further research on him since who knows if he’ll even stay in (I hope not, there are enough candidates already, most of whom had the forethought to get in the race earlier than the literal morning of the endorsing convention.) (I feel like getting into the race post-convention is less obnoxious than jumping in THE DAY OF and wasting everyone’s time.)

Will Stancil

So yeah wow. If you’re familiar with Will, you probably (like me) should spend less time on Twitter. I was a little taken aback to find out he was local, because his Twitter focus has been primarily national. The best article I found to explain his whole deal was this Racket profile from earlier in the month.

I don’t follow Will, but his tweets constantly cross my feed anyway, either because one of my friends thinks he said something smart and retweeted it, or because one of my friends thinks he said something bad and quote-tweeted with a bunch of snark. I don’t actually want to go through his (enormous) (you cannot even fucking imagine how much this man tweets) Twitter archive to evaluate how often people get mad at him even though he’s right and how much of his own snark is normal for Twitter and so on and so forth, I will instead focus on this:

[eta: Will got his website up on 2/24]. I don’t have a link to a website here because Will doesn’t have a website up yet. There is a website circulating: it was created by right-wing trolls who scooped up the WillStancil dot com URL because Will didn’t fucking register it before initiating his campaign. (ETA: he says they scooped it up before he decided to run. It does not sound like they’ve had it for long, though.) The troll website has real links to his fundraiser to add veracity but also a “Volunteer” link connected to a Google Form that collects people’s personal information. (There’s also a “Kody Hurst” on Twitter claiming to be Will’s campaign manager. He is not. I don’t know who Will’s campaign manager is, but Kody Hurst is part of the overall disinformation campaign here.)

Will’s campaign has also caused this massive influx of right-wing trolls who are harassing Katie Jones with a degree of vitriol and threat you rarely see in a local race. (They are entirely focused on Katie, from what I can tell, because none of them have noticed there are other people also in the race.) These trolls are posing as Will Stancil supporters who are supporting him with racism, misogyny, and transphobia that Will does not in fact countenance or welcome, obviously, but it’s being directed at Katie Jones; her mentions are a horrifying sewer. It’s not great.

I do not think Will is handling anything about this situation with the trolls, the fake website, the fake campaign manager, etc., particularly well, but at least, as of 2/24, he now has a website: www.willstancil.org/.

On March 16th, the Minneapolis DFL Senior Caucus rated Will “acceptable.”. (Note for those who don’t know this: the DFL Senior Caucus is currently one of the most conservative DFL groups — heavily in favor of parking minimums, more cops, etc.)

Election 2021: Minneapolis City Council, Ward 10

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This is an open seat; Lisa Bender is not running again.

On the ballot:

Alicia Gibson (DFL)
Katie Jones (DFL)
Chris Parsons (DFL)
Aisha Chughtai (DFL)
David Wheeler (DFL)
Ubah Nur (DFL)

No one has the DFL endorsement.

tl;dr — Katie Jones and Aisha Chughtai in some order, 1 and 2.

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